[This collection, one of the most important and interesting among the treasures of the Louvre, occupies a somewhat unobtrusive suite of rooms on the Ground Floor, and is therefore too little visited by most passing tourists. It contains three separate sets of plastic work: first, sculpture of the =Italian Renaissance=, on which the French was mainly based; second, sculpture of the =Middle Ages= in France, leading gradually up to the age of François I^{er}, and improving as it goes, though uninfluenced as yet by external models; third, and most important of all, in Paris at least, the exquisite sculpture of the =French Renaissance=, a revolt from mediævalism, inspired from above by kings and nobles, based partly on direct study of the antique (many specimens of which were brought to France by François I^{er}), but still more largely on Italian models, made familiar to French students through the work of artists invited to the Court under the later Valois, as well as through the Italian wars of Charles VIII, Louis XII and François I^{er} (of which last more must be said when we visit St. Denis). At least =one whole day= should be devoted by every one to this fascinating collection: those who can afford the time should come here often, and study _au fond_ the exquisite works of Donatello, Michael Angelo, and (most of all) Jean Goujon, Germain Pilon, and their great French contemporaries. The Italians can be seen to greater advantage at Florence and elsewhere; only here can one form a just idea of the beauty and importance of the French Renaissance.] * * * * * Enter by Door D, in Baedeker’s plan—centre of the South-Eastern wing in the (old) Cour du Louvre. Pass straight through the vestibule, and Salle de Jean Goujon; then turn to your R, traversing the Salle de Michel Ange, and enter that of the =Italian Renaissance= (numbered VI officially). The Renaissance in France being entirely based upon that in Italy, we have first to observe (especially in the case of those who have not already visited Venice and Florence) what was the character of the =Italian works= upon which the French sculptors and architects based themselves. Here you get, as it were, the original: in French sculpture, the copy. This small hall—the hall of =Donatello=—contains works of sculpture of the 13th to the 15th centuries in Italy. Contrast it mentally with the purely mediæval objects which you saw at Cluny, unrelieved for the most part by classical example, in order to measure the distance which separates the Italians of this epoch from their contemporaries north of the Alps. Recollect, too, that the Italian Renaissance grew of itself from within, while the French was an artificially cultivated exotic.