The Fleming was the traveller _par excellence_ of the Renaissance— sculptor, cabinet-maker, painter, architect, potter, weaver, goldsmith— we find him everywhere. He even reaches Hungary, Russia and Turkey. Spain he finds a congenial soil, and also England. Although Burgundy resisted the Italian invasion for a time, the Renaissance was destined to reach, perhaps, its most brilliant development, after Italy, in this very province. It is generally conceded that the Burgundian style owes its character to Hughes Sambin, an architect and master carpenter, born about the beginning of the sixteenth century. In 1535, he finished the porch of St. Michel’s in Dijon, and in 1572, published in Lyons, after a period of study in Michael Angelo’s studio, a book filled with wood engravings, and entitled _Oeuvres de la diversité des termes dont on se sert en architecture, réduit en ordre par Maistre Hughes Sambin, architecteur en la ville de Dijon_. Sambin’s most important work is the _Palais de Justice_ in Dijon, where there is a very beautiful wooden door carved by him, or under his direction, and the _Salle des Procurateurs_, built under Henri II, the ceiling of which is carved wood. Sambin’s book shows that he was an adept in the Renaissance style, and devoted to the study of antique monuments. Regarding him, Champeaux says: “In truth, it is the taste for caryatides and grotesque figures surrounded by garlands, and supporting broken pediments that predominate in all his compositions. The result is a certain character of heaviness and _bizarrerie_ that is more conspicuous in the buildings contributed by him than in his furniture, for the material of the latter, less cold than stone, allows more scope to the original fantasy of the artist. The furniture inspired by Sambin’s designs does not exhibit the ponderous grace of the _armoires_ and _buffets_ made in Paris; the lines are not traced with the same tasteful harmony; but it must be recognized that no school equals the vigour and the dramatic expression of the Burgundian artists of this period. The figures of the caryatides and chimerical animals that support the various parts of their furniture and conceal the uprights, are animated with a brutal energy that only skilful chisels can create. Moreover, the walnut wood of which they are carved has been clothed with a warm tone that sometimes equals that of Florentine bronzes.” [Illustration: PLATE IX.—_Armoire, Burgundian School._ ]