A small part of the building which is to-day known as the Louvre was first occupied as a royal residence by Philippe-Auguste (reigned 1180-1223), who converted a hunting-seat of the early French kings on this site into a feudal fortress with a strong _donjon_ or keep, the exact plan of which may still be traced by the white line marked since 1868 on the pavement in the southwest corner of the old courtyard. Charles v. (reigned 1364-80), who may be regarded as the first royal collector of art treasures in France, greatly enlarged the building of the Old Louvre as a residential palace; he is also said to have decorated the building with statues and paintings which have long since disappeared. The real foundations of the collection of _la maison du Roi_ were laid by François I. (reigned 1515-47), who during his Italian campaigns acquired a respect for art that proved to be an honour to his taste and a dowry for his country. The æsthetic movement had developed rapidly by 1541, when he laid the foundations of the present palace[2] and had already begun to form a collection of easel pictures. François I. invited to his court the master-painter Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), who in 1516 left his native land for France, where he did the king little more than the compliment of dying in his realm, although not, as an unveracious tradition recounts, in his arms. Andrea del Sarto (1486-1531) was also employed at the French court, at which he arrived in 1518. Giovanni Battista Rosso (1494-1541), a painter of little genius but great ability, was summoned by François I. in 1530 to decorate the Château at Fontainebleau. Benvenuto Cellini (1500-71), the Florentine goldsmith, having “determined to seek another country and better luck,” was yet one more artist who set out for France, where, between 1540 and 1544, he adorned the royal tables with objects precious in workmanship and material. Primaticcio (1504-70), who is known to have cleaned at Fontainebleau in 1530 four of the large reputed Raphaels now in the Louvre, remained at the French court until his death. The strict authenticity of these four pictures—_The Holy Family of Francis I._ (No. 1498), the _St. Margaret_ (No. 1501), the large _St. Michael_ (No. 1504), and the _Portrait of Joan of Arragon_ (No. 1507)—does not here concern us. François I. also possessed at this date, among other notable pictures, Raphael’s _La Belle Jardinière_ (No. 1496, Plate VII.), Leonardo da Vinci’s _Virgin of the Rocks_ (No. 1599), and the same artist’s _Mona Lisa_ or _La Joconde_ (No. 1601, Plate IV.), while the art of Sebastiano del Piombo, Andrea del Sarto, and other painters, Flemish as well as Italian, was well represented in the royal collection during his reign.