{"id":6784,"date":"2012-09-19T17:54:29","date_gmt":"2012-09-19T21:54:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/?page_id=6784"},"modified":"2013-03-28T16:25:03","modified_gmt":"2013-03-28T20:25:03","slug":"a-2-exterior-staircase-destroyed-and-portico","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/catalogues\/architecture\/a-2-exterior-staircase-destroyed-and-portico\/","title":{"rendered":"A.2. Exterior Staircase (Destroyed) and Portico"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Portico<\/p><\/div>\n

(reconstructed and rebuilt with new stone), Cour Ovale, Ch\u00e2teau, Fontainebleau<\/p>\n

1531-1532<\/p>\n

Fig.Portico<\/a><\/p>\n

The attribution to Rosso of the design of the portico and of the exterior staircase, which was once joined to it, in the Cour Ovale at Fontainebleau was suggested by Chastel (1967; 1978, I, 455-468).\u00a0 He based his attribution upon the reconstruction made by Bray (1940; Fig.Bray Ground Plan<\/a> and Fig.Bray Elevation<\/a>) and which the latter derived from the portico as it survives (the so-called Portico of Serlio; Fig.Portico<\/a>) and from the evidence of the excavation made by him in the Cour Ovale in 1938.1<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

On 5 August 1531 the master mason Gilles Le Breton was commissioned to make a \u201cgrand escallier\u201d for the ch\u00e2teau at Fontainebleau, the original specifications of which are not known.2<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 Almost ten years later, on 10 March 1541 (modern style), he was charged with the \u201crechangement du grand escallier,\u201d involving the demolition of part of it and the re-use of some of the material in the making of the required changes while \u201cle reste il sera tenu serrer et mettre en tas en la court dudit cha(stea)u au proffit du Roy.\u201d\u00a0 No other specifications for the changing of the original project are known.<\/p>\n

Paris, Bibl. nat., ms. fr. 11.179, fols. 188-189 (Laborde, I, 1877, 210-211).3<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

10 March 1541 (modern style):<\/p>\n

\n

BASTIMENS DU ROY POUR DEUX ANN\u00c9ES FINIES LE DERNIER<\/p>\n

SEPTEMBRE 1550.<\/p>\n

Devis, march\u00e9, tois\u00e9 et certifications des ouvrages des Bastimens de Fontainebleau, Boullongne-les-Paris, que nos Seigneurs des Comptes ont ordonn\u00e9 \u00e0 la closture du dernier compte desdits bastimens rendu par le pr\u00e9sent commis m(a\u00eetr)e Nicolas Picart.<\/p>\n

Fontainebleau. <\/em><\/p>\n

Ma\u00e7onnerie. <\/em><\/p>\n

Gilles le Breton, m(aistr)e ma\u00e7on des bastimens du Roy \u00e0 Fontainebleau, confesse avoir fait march\u00e9 et convenant \u00e0 messires Nicolas de Neufville, chevalier, seigneur de Villeroy, conseiller du Roy et secr\u00e9taire de ses finances, et Philbert Babou, aussy chevalier, seigneur de la Bourdaizi\u00e8re, conseiller du Roy, secr\u00e9taire de ses finances et tr\u00e9sorier de France, commissaires ordonnez et d\u00e9putez par le Roy sur le fait de ses bastimens et \u00e9diffices de Fontainebleau, en la pr\u00e9sence de Pierre Deshostels, varlet de chambre ordinaire du Roy, et par luy commis au controlle desdits bastimens et \u00e9diffices, de faire et parfaire pour le Roy, en son cha(stea)u de Fontainebleau, tour et chacuns les ouvrages de ma\u00e7onnerie et taille qu\u2019il convient faire pour le rechangement du grand escallier dudit cha(stea)u et autres ouvrages contenus et d\u00e9clarez au devis cy devant escrit, et ce, outre le contenu et march\u00e9 fait avec luy pour raison dudit grand escallier et de la chappelle dudit cha(stea)u, datt\u00e9 du samedy 5e<\/sup> d\u2019aoust 1531, et pour ce faire sera tenu ledit Breton faire \/188v\/ toutes les desmolissions et retablissemens qu\u2019il conviendra pour ce faire, desquelles desmolitions il remettera an ouevre tout ce qui poura servir ausdits ouvrages, et le reste it sera tenu serrer et mettre en tas en la court dudit cha(stea)u au proffit du Roy, et fournir et livrer ledit le Breton les autres mati\u00e8res de pierre de taille de grez et liasis et autres mati\u00e8res qu\u2019il conviendra pour iceux ouvrages, outre ce qui restera desdites desmolitons, tant chaulx, sables, eschaffaux, engins, peines d\u2019ouvriers et d\u2019aydes, at autres choses \u00e0 ce n\u00e9cessaires touchant le fait de ma\u00e7onnerie et rendre place nette, le tout bien et deuement suivant ledit devis devant transcrit et au dit d\u2019ouvriers et gens \u00e0 ce connoissans, moyennant et parmy le pris et somme de 1,800 liv. qui pour ce faire luy en sera baill\u00e9e et pay\u00e9e par le commis au payement desdits bastimens et \u00e9diffices de Fontainebleau, au feur et ainsy qu\u2019il aura besongn\u00e9 et fait besongner ausdits ouvrages esquels il sera tenu besongner et faire besonger en la plus grande diligence et avec le plus grand nombre d\u2019ouvriers qua faire se poura, promettant et obligeant comme pour les propres besongnes et affaires du Roy, renon\u00e7ant, fait et pass\u00e9 multiples le jeudy 10e<\/sup> de mars 1540.\u00a0 Sign\u00e9<\/em>: Drouin et Goussart.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

1548-1550 (uncorrected from Laborde):<\/p>\n

De l\u2019ordonnance de noble personne, maistre Philbert de Lorme, abb\u00e9 d\u2019Ivry, de Saint Barthelemy de Noyon et de Geveton, conseiller, ausmonier ordinaire du Roy, architecte dudit Seigneur, commissaire ordonn\u00e9 et d\u00e9put\u00e9 sur le fait de ses bastimens et \u00e9diffices de Fontainebleau, nous, Charles Baillard, maistre ma\u00e7on de Monseigneur le Connestable, Guillaume Chalou, Jean Chaponnet, maistres ma\u00e7ons \u00e0 Paris, et Jean Fran\u00e7ois, aussy ma\u00e7on, demeurant \u00e0 Meleun, apr\u00e8s serment par nous fait par devant ledit commissaire avons en sa pr\u00e9sence et en la pr\u00e9sence de maistre Pierre Deshostels, notaire et secr\u00e9taire du Roy, et par luy commis au contrerolle de sesdits bastimens et \u00e9diffices, veu visit\u00e9 les ouvrages de ma\u00e7onnerie et taille de l\u2019\u00e9diffice fait de neuf audit Fontainebleau, auquel il y a deux chappelles, l\u2019une basse et l\u2019autre haulte, et aussy le grand escallier fait de neuf audit chasteau par maistre Gilles le Breton, maistre des oeuvres de ma\u00e7onnerie du Roy, assavoir si ledit \u00e9diffice desdites deux chappelles et ledit grand escalier ont est\u00e9 et sont bien et deuement faits et parfaits ainsy que ledit Breton est tenu et oblig\u00e9 faire par deux devis et marchez de ce faits.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It was only with the excavation of 1938 and Bray\u2019s article of 1940 that the full meaning of the references in the documents was made clear.\u00a0 The so-called Portico of Serlio, in its original placement as seen in Du Cerceau\u2019s drawing of the ch\u00e2teau in the British Museum (Fig.Du Cerceau BM Drawing<\/a> and Fig.Du Cerceau BM Drawing, Cour Ovale<\/a>), and in his print of the same view of 1579 (Fig.Du Cerceau BM Print<\/a> and Fig.Du Cerceau BM Print, Cour Ovale<\/a>), was built both as the background for, as well as the culminating element of, an exterior staircase of two ramps and a bridge that preceded and led to it.\u00a0 From the evidence of the foundations of the staircase under the pavement of the Cour Ovale, Bray was able to reconstruct the destroyed staircase and its relationship to the portico as they were situated within the original wide angle on the north side of the courtyard as it turned slightly toward the southwest (Fig.Bray Elevation<\/a>).\u00a0 At ground level under the arch that supported the platform that joined the two ramps was a rectangular basin filled with water brought by a conduit from the king\u2019s garden.4<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 The actual appearance of the architecture of the ramps, arch, platform, and bridge Bray conjectured from that of the surviving portico, and except for the balusters, the medallions on the front faces of the ramps, and the interior of the area containing the pool, his reconstruction appears sound and convincing.5<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 When, on 10 March 1541, Le Breton was assigned to make changes to this project, these, it can now be determined, were the demolition of the ramps, supporting arches, platform, and bridge, the filling in of the gap in the portico left by the removal of the bridge and its arches, and the minimal finishing off without pilasters, bases, and capitals of the new front surfaces of the central area of the portico.\u00a0 A new interior staircase was built to which the portico now became the entrance and frontispiece.\u00a0 Under Henry IV, at the very beginning of the seventeenth century, the alignment of the portico was shifted in accord with the straightening out (and prolongment) of the north side of the Cour Ovale.6<\/sup><\/a> \u00a0In this place it first appears in Francini\u2019s engraved view of Fontainebleau of 1614 (Fig.Francini<\/a>; Fig.Francini detail<\/a>).7<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 At the end of the nineteenth century the portico was rebuilt and the original capitals were replaced.8<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Bray, as well as Blunt and Chastel, related the form of this staircase with its \u201cdouble flight leading to a single flight bridging an arch to the first floor of the building\u201d to a late French medieval tradition, and specifically to the staircases at Montargis and in the Palais de Justice in Paris.9<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 But Chastel pointed to two major innovations: the forward element takes on a stricter geometrical form, and second, in its composition as an arch of triumph on two levels, it is a structure \u201c\u00e0 l\u2019antique\u201d that is totally new in France and seems to have no equivalent in Italy.\u00a0 He pointed out that the novelty of the portico alone was already recognized by Gebelin in 1927, who questioned Le Breton\u2019s invention of it but stated that it could not be by Serlio, who first arrived in France a decade after its construction.10<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 Chastel suggested that with the elimination of Le Breton, whose architecture the staircase does not resemble, and Serlio, it is very possible that the architect of this project was Rosso, who had arrived in France in 1530.<\/p>\n

In support of this attribution, Chastel compared part of Bray\u2019s reconstruction with the arch preceded by a staircase in the background of Rosso\u2019s Unity of the State<\/em>, in the Gallery of Francis I (Fig.P.22, VI S, staircase<\/a>), and in the matching tapestry (Fig.P.22, VI S,Tapestry, staircase<\/a>), where he found a similar \u201cfort entablement, s\u00e8chement d\u00e9coup\u00e9.\u201d\u00a0 He also referred to the arrangement of a staircase and an arch in Rosso\u2019s Allegory of Deceit<\/em> at the right of the Loss of Perpetual Youth<\/em> in the gallery (Fig.P.22, II S f<\/a>).11<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 However, the similarities that can be found between the architecture in these paintings by Rosso and the architecture of the staircase and portico at Fontainebleau are far too few and too general to support alone an attribution of this project to the Italian artist.\u00a0 But Chastel also brought to bear upon his argument several comments by Vasari on Rosso\u2019s activity as an architect.\u00a0 Vasari stated (1568, II, 209; Vasari-Milanesi, V, 165) that Rosso \u201cfece molti disegni in Arezzo e fuori, per pitture, e fabriche\u201d and he mentioned one of a chapel for the Fraternita in Arezzo (L.33<\/a>).\u00a0 Very early in his account of Rosso\u2019s career in France, Vasari said (1568, II, 210; Vasari-Milanesi, V, 167) that the king \u201clo fece capo generale sopra tutte le fabriche, pitture, ed altri ornamenti\u201d at Fontainebleau, and then later (1568, II, 211; Vasari-Milanesi, V, 170) mentioned all the decorations that he made for Charles V\u2019s visit to Fontainebleau, singling out the arches of triumph (see L.47<\/a>).\u00a0 Chastel also recalled that in October and November 1531 Rosso was paid for the \u201cmodel d\u2019une s\u00e9pulture\u201d (L.37<\/a>).\u00a0 He might also have quoted the passage early in the \u201cLife\u201d of Rosso (1568, II, 205; Vasari-Milanesi, V, 156) where Vasari said that \u201cNell\u2019Architetture fu eccellentissimo, e straordinario,\u201d and have mentioned the triumphal arch that Rosso designed for the entry of Leo X into Florence in 1515 (L.12<\/a>).\u00a0 It is this information about Rosso\u2019s activity as an architect, together with the incompatibility of the style of the staircase and portico with what is known of Le Breton\u2019s architecture, that make it very likely that this project for the Cour Ovale, commissioned in August 1531, was designed by Rosso.<\/p>\n

This suggestion has, however, to be reconciled with the indication in the documents that the project was in fact commissioned to Le Breton.\u00a0 Le Breton, referred to in 1528 as \u201cma\u00e7on, tailleur de pierre,\u201d12<\/sup><\/a> was, in 1541, the \u201cmaistre ma\u00e7on des batimens du Roy \u00e0 Fontainebleau.\u201d\u00a0 From the very beginning of work on the enlargement of the ch\u00e2teau in 1528, Le Breton seems to have been responsible for all construction there.\u00a0 It is also generally thought that he was the architect and designer of the additions to the ch\u00e2teau specified at that time and later.\u00a0 But his style, represented by the Port Dor\u00e9e commissioned in 1528, cannot be specifically identified with that of the portico and staircase in the Cour Ovale.\u00a0 In spite of its imposing size and the dramatic effectiveness of its three open bays rising in the middle, the general planarity and asymmetry of the design of the Porte Dor\u00e9e are very unlike the symmetrical and very plastic portico and staircase commissioned three years later.\u00a0 Nor are they related to any other work attributed to Le Breton.13<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 It has to be concluded that someone else designed them.\u00a0 The attribution to Rosso is a very reasonable one, not merely because no one else can at the moment be suggested, but because he was, if Vasari is to be believed, head of all building at Fontainebleau, and, in this capacity, the superior to Le Breton.\u00a0 But as Rosso had never, so far as we know, supervised any real construction in stone, he would have needed Le Breton, \u201cma\u00e7on, tailleur de pierre,\u201d to get the portico and staircase actually built.14<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Given the probability based on circumstantial evidence that Rosso, in 1531, designed this portico and staircase at Fontainebleau, it is possible, in addition to the two comparisons that Chastel made, to relate their style to that of the architecture of three of his drawings.\u00a0 In his Annunciation<\/em> of 1531 or 1532 in the Albertina (Fig.D.43a<\/a>; but known more completely from an engraving after it, Fig.E.133<\/a>), the architectural setting is very plastically conceived, both through the definition of its unfluted columns – like those of the staircase and portico – raised on high bases, and by the complex spatial arrangement of them.15<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 Rosso\u2019s Narcissus<\/em> of the same date (Fig.D.44<\/a>) has also richly plastic architecture with an unfluted column on a high base set in the foreground, and in the background unfluted pilasters with richly carved figured capitals – similar to those of the staircase and portico – carrying an entablature with a balustrade above it, and at the side an arch, this whole arrangement with a curved ruined wall of arches and oculi behind it. \u00a0Of a slightly earlier date is Rosso\u2019s Design for an Altar<\/em> of 1529, in the British Museum (Fig.D.38a<\/a>), which also has unfluted columns and pilasters and a bold two-level composition of various projecting and receding parts \u201c\u00e0 l\u2019antique.\u201d\u00a0 This architecture in Rosso\u2019s drawings is entirely unlike Le Breton\u2019s and differs from it quite as the architecture of the staircase and portico at Fontainebleau differs from that of the Port Dor\u00e9e.\u00a0 Again, this visual evidence is not all that one would wish it to be in support of the attribution of the portico and staircase to Rosso.16<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 But it should be borne in mind that the portico and staircase are built architecture while that of the drawings, and of the paintings mentioned by Chastel, serves as settings in pictures or, in the case of the structurally somewhat unconvincing Design for an Altar<\/em>, as the frame and setting originally of a venerated statue.\u00a0 The project at Fontainebleau was real architecture in the sense that it had to be substantial and had to create spaces that could be actually occupied and actively used.\u00a0 For these reasons it would need to be and look different from the architecture of the drawings and the paintings.<\/p>\n

Although it seems very likely that Rosso designed the portico and staircase in the Cour Ovale, it may be necessary to recognize that his conception of this project owed something to Le Breton.\u00a0 As pointed out by Bray, Blunt, and Chastel, the form of the staircase proper had its origins in medieval French architecture and its use at Fontainebleau could well have been due to Le Breton.\u00a0 Furthermore, the composition of the project as a scheme extending from the ground to the roof, including the double dormer rather than the single dormer used everywhere else in the courtyard, could just possibly be at the insistence of Le Breton or inspired by the design of the Porte Dor\u00e9e.17<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 The translation of these premises into the geometry and antique manner of what was built would be due to Rosso.\u00a0 Already in Arezzo in 1529 he had begun to design architecture in this manner dependent upon what he had learned in Florence and Rome and also very possibly from what he had learned from Vitruvius, a copy of whose book on architecture he owned before he left for France (see DOC.13<\/a>).\u00a0 It might be recalled here that Rosso, probably just about the same time as the project of the staircase and portico, seems to have had a hand in the modification of the original plans associated with Le Breton for the architecture of the Gallery of Francis I (A.1<\/a> and P.22 and text).<\/p>\n

Chastel suggested that the making of this grand staircase with its portico may be related to a monumental scheme by Rosso that included the chapel, also commissioned from Le Breton on 5 August 1531, on the other side of the Cour Ovale, the exterior of the apse of which on two levels (but not visible in the courtyard) repeats the architectural motifs of the portico, including its capitals (A.4<\/a>),18<\/sup><\/a> and the building containing a gallery – the Small Gallery (L.41<\/a>) – that linked the chapel to the Porte Dor\u00e9e.\u00a0 Ten years later this \u201cpuissante composition\u201d was already modified by the demolition of the staircase (and possibly, one might add, by the destruction of the Small Gallery and its replacement by the larger Salle du Bal).\u00a0 Chastel thought that this took place before Rosso died, and the \u201crechangement du grand escallier\u201d was due to the wish to clear the courtyard in order to provide better conditions for the visit of Charles V, which Vasari thought took place in 1540.<\/p>\n

Charles V actually visited Fontainebleau during the last week of December 1539 (see L.48<\/a>).\u00a0 Rosso died on 14 November 1540.\u00a0 The document charging Gilles Le Breton with the \u201crechangement du grand escallier\u201d is dated 10 March 1540, but because Easter fell on 17 April in 1541 this date must be, modern style, 10 March 1541, as indicated by Gebelin, 1927, 102, n. 16.\u00a0 The reasons for the demolition of the staircase and the person who ordered it are unknown.\u00a0 It is possible that the removal of the staircase was part of a plan to give greater unity to the disparate elements that formed the perimeter of the Cour Ovale.\u00a0 In Du Cerceau\u2019s plans and views of this courtyard, a colonnade runs around all but one side of the Cour Ovale – the side with the entrance to the chapel and the north wall of the Salle du Bal – and the portico appears as a focal point of the unity achieved by the continuous effect of these columns, which can still be appreciated.\u00a0 The arrangement without the staircase clarifies the space of the courtyard and gives the Cour Ovale an almost classic appearance. Bray thought this colonnade was added at the time of the \u201crechangement\u201d of the staircase and portico, and this seems likely.19<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 According to the document of 1541, Le Breton was to make necessary demolition and changes to the project of 1531, but there is no way of being sure that this was at his instigation.\u00a0 If the colonnade was part of the scheme of alteration involving the staircase, then it may be difficult to recognize Le Breton as the inventor of this plan.\u00a0 In March of 1541 Primaticcio was still away from France so the plan could not have been his.\u00a0 However, just around this time Serlio is known to have arrived and been appointed architect in charge of building operations at Fontainebleau.20<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 It is just possible that, as earlier Le Breton had to work under Rosso, in 1541 he was subordinated to Serlio.\u00a0 Simple as the project of the removal of the staircase and the addition of the colonnade to the courtyard was, it gave the Cour Ovale the modern aspect that Francis I wanted for his ch\u00e2teau and it did this more systematically than Rosso\u2019s staircase and portico could do by their imposing effect alone.\u00a0 The new arrangement seems to be the kind that Serlio might well have handled upon arriving at his new position.\u00a0 But it should be added that between 1548 and 1550, after the death of Francis I and after the dismissal of Serlio, the staircase and the chapel (actually two superimposed chapels) were inspected on the order of Serlio\u2019s successor, Philibert DeLorme, and at that time they were still referred to as by \u201cMaitre Gilles Lebreton, maitre des oeuvres de ma\u00e7onnerie du Roy\u201d (see Document above).\u00a0 But Le Breton had not achieved the professional rank of architect as Serlio and DeLorme had.\u00a0 He was still a mason.\u00a0 It was in this capacity that he would have served under Rosso when, it seems, the latter designed the staircase and portico for the Cour Ovale.21<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

As to the date of the original project, it might be assumed that, commissioned on 5 August 1531, it was designed shortly thereafter and actually built within a twelve-month period or so.\u00a0 By the end of 1532 it may well have been completed, just a short while before Rosso became most seriously involved in the decoration of the Gallery of Francis I.\u00a0 On the Small Gallery and the chapels to which the staircase and portico may be related, see P.22 and A.4<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

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<\/a>1<\/sup> Photographs of Bray\u2019s excavation and his excavation drawing appear in Bray, 1940, 191, 195, and in Chastel, 1967, Figs. 2-4 (1978, I, 455-460, Figs. 187-189); see also Bray, n.d. [1956], 4-5, 8, Fig., 9, Fig.; Blunt, 1973, 56, 57, Fig. 33, 408, n. 9, who thought it may have been partly inspired by Rosso; and Guillaume, 1985, 36, 37-38, Fig. 71, who thought the staircase was probably designed by Rosso.\u00a0 Chastel\u2019s attribution is mentioned in Knecht, 1994, 410.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>2<\/sup> This commission is known only second-hand from the brief reference to it in the document of 10 March 1541 (modern style, see Document below) concerned with alterations to be made to the staircase.\u00a0 The significance of the documents related to this project had already been discussed by Dimier, 1900, 246-251, and mentioned by Blomfield, 1911, 51.\u00a0 Herbet, 1937, 236, 292-296, believed the document of 1541 was not related to the Cour Ovale and that the portico was by Serlio, and designed in 1541-1543, but he wrote before Bray\u2019s excavation of 1938.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>3<\/sup> Mentioned by Dimier, 1900, 248.\u00a0 Partially transcribed in Laborde, Renaissance<\/em>, I, 1850, 434-435, and fully in Chastel, 1967, 78-79, with a discussion of why the two documents of 1541 and 1548-1550 appear together.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>4<\/sup> See the Tour du Jardin (A.3<\/a>) that Rosso may have designed about the same time and that overlooked the king\u2019s garden.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>5<\/sup> The lions\u2019 heads resting on the cornice above the central arch were copied by Bray from the portico where they could not originally have been (see also n. 15).\u00a0 The double F motif of the large medallions he copied from the pediment of the windows above the portico, although it cannot be known that the fronts of the ramps had decoration.\u00a0 The reconstruction of the space under the platform is not quite understandable from Bray\u2019s excavation drawing.\u00a0 But neither is, for that matter, the architecture of the central arch, which, nevertheless, must have corresponded to that of the portico. \u00a0It is possible that the full evidence of the excavation is not indicated in this drawing by him.\u00a0 Unfortunately, Bray\u2019s file on this project has not been found (see Chastel, 1967, 78, n. 35; 1978, I, 465, n. 35).\u00a0 On the balusters of his reconstruction, see n. 16.\u00a0 Pressouyre, 1974, 32-33, believed that it was difficult to know the original appearance of the stairway from the excavations and \u201csoundings\u201d of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.\u00a0 Nevertheless, it seems to me, as it did to Chastel, that Bray\u2019s reconstruction is plausible.\u00a0 Blunt also accepted it (see below).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>6<\/sup> Bray, 1940, 193-194.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>7<\/sup> Chastel, 1967, 80 (1978, I, 467).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>8<\/sup> Bray, 1940, 200; Dimier, 1925, 13-14.\u00a0 Chastel, 1967, 80 (1978, I, 468), pointed out that the capitals were replaced at this time and that their original appearance can be found in the illustrations of the portico in Pfnor and Champollion-Figeac, 1863, I, 8, and Pls. V-VII; Chastel\u2019s Fig. 7 (1978, I, 469, Fig. 191) of Pl. V is too unclear to make out the design of the capitals.\u00a0 Palustre, I, 1879, 194-198, 195, Fig.\u00a0 Pfnor, 1889, 123, Fig. of one capital.\u00a0 Gebelin, 1927, Pl. XXXV, Fig. 56, from the Archives photographiques, appears to be of the portico before its reconstruction.\u00a0 The history of the portico and staircase is also discussed by Pressouyre, 1974, 32-36.\u00a0 It is possible that the new alignment took place around the same time that the north wall of the Salle du Bal was extended across the fa\u00e7ade of the chapels beginning at the end of 1603 (Pressouyre, 1974, 37).\u00a0 Pressouyre stated that the rebuilding by Boitte took place in 1882, as did Herbet, 1937, 292, 295; Chastel gave 1894.\u00a0 The interior staircase had been removed in 1748, according to Pressouyre, in 1767, according to Chastel.\u00a0 Babelon, 1989, 201, Figs., 203, 206, mentioned the remodeling of 1541, and its reconstruction under Henry IV that he thought might have been done by Serlio in 1545.\u00a0 He said this reconstruction was destroyed in 1748 and replaced in 1882 with the present flat portico.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>9<\/sup> Blunt, 1953, 31 (whom I quote), also related the staircase to the one at Bury, with which Chastel, 1967, 75, n. 16, was not inclined to agree.\u00a0 However, Blunt, 1973, 56, 408, n. 9, found persuasive Chastel\u2019s theory that the staircase and portico were designed by Rosso.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>10<\/sup> But Gebelin, 1927, 98, did not actually deny Le Breton\u2019s authorship, even as he saw the extraordinary change in his style here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>11<\/sup> Chastel, 1967, 77 (1978, I, 463), referred to \u201cune gravure post\u00e9rieure\u201d of this scene, probably meaning the copy of a lost drawing by Rosso in the Biblioth\u00e8que Nationale in Paris (Fig.D.56<\/a>).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>12<\/sup> This is his title in the specifications of 1528 for the work to be done at Fontainebleau (see P.22).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>13<\/sup> On Le Breton, see Blunt, 1973, 54-57.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>14<\/sup> Pressouyre, 1974, 34, and n. 46, believed that \u201cLe Breton fut surtout un ex\u00e9cutant…\u201d but while she mentioned Chastel\u2019s article of 1967, she did not discuss his attribution of the portico and stairway to Rosso.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>15<\/sup> It should be noted that the base of the front column in this Annunciation<\/em> is decorated with a lion\u2019s head and that lions\u2019 heads appear on the portico at Fontainebleau, although in a location they could not originally have had.\u00a0 Bray placed them above the central arch of the staircase.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>16<\/sup> The balusters that Bray invented for his reconstruction do not correspond to any architectural detail in Rosso\u2019s works.\u00a0 It might be more appropriate to substitute the round shaped balusters that appear at the top of Rosso\u2019s Design for an Altar <\/em>of 1529 and in the background of his Narcissus<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>17<\/sup> The double dormer, which can be seen in Du Cerceau\u2019s views, has basically the same design as the single dormer to the left with pilasters and the double F in the pediment.\u00a0 These windows and the ones at the right of the same design (like those of the later extension at the right, the first two of which may be re-used original dormers from the former block that was set at a different angle) are probably by Le Breton.\u00a0 On the site of the portico there had been, according to Bray, a spiral staircase in a round turret (see its placement in Bray\u2019s excavation drawing, Chastel, 1967, Fig. 2 [1978, I, 459, Fig. 188 (Fig.Bray Ground Plan<\/a>)]; there were two other round staircase turrets in two other corners of the Cour Ovale; see Du Cerceau\u2019s view from the south, Fig.Du Cerceau BM Print, Cour Ovale<\/a>; see also Pressouyre, 1974, 30).\u00a0 This staircase and turret probably rose into the area of the double dormer, which would have been built only after the demolition of the turret.\u00a0 All the other dormers in this courtyard are single and consequently the double dormer, which is also higher than the single ones, makes a special climactic effect.\u00a0 As its very existence seems to be dependent upon the removal of the spiral staircase, its special appearance must have been related to whatever would replace the turret and staircase on the first and ground floors.\u00a0 This could only have been another entranceway that, one might assume, Le Breton planned in some kind of correspondence to that double dormer.\u00a0 There had to be a staircase planned for this location, which would probably have been an external one if only because the one enclosed in a turret was destroyed and the staircase that was built was outside, and it could also have been a double flight with a bridge like the one that was constructed.\u00a0 This would have led to an entranceway on the first floor.\u00a0 The composition of this ensemble could have been quite simple compared to what was actually built, but it would, nevertheless, also have formed a special focal point in the Cour Ovale.\u00a0 When the staircase and portico \u201c\u00e0 l\u2019antique\u201d were built, the planned double dormer was maintained because its style matched that of the single dormers.\u00a0 But given its size and placement it was still seen, and can still be seen, as bearing some relationship to the portico and staircase of a different style beneath it.<\/p>\n

Blunt, 1973, 56-57, said of Bray\u2019s reconstruction that the \u201cmiddle arch has exactly the form which we see on the outer side of the Porte Dor\u00e9e, and the mouldings and capitals are similar.\u201d\u00a0 The central arches of the portico are slightly flattened and Bray repeated this form in the central arch of the stairway.\u00a0 The bottom arch of the Porte Dor\u00e9e is only very slightly flattened and this is barely perceptible compared to the very visible flattening of arches of the portico in the Cour Ovale.\u00a0 (Only in Pfnor\u2019s drawing of the Porte Dor\u00e9e does the lower arch really look flat; see Pfnor and Champollion-Figeac, 1863, I, Pl. XV; and Chastel, 1967, Fig. 9 [1978, I, 469, Fig. 191]).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>18<\/sup> Pressouyre, 1974, 32, n. 37, thought that two plans of the eighteenth century, Morgan Library, New York, 1956.31, and Biblioth\u00e8que Nationale, Paris, Est. Va 340 (Chastel, 1967, Fig. 10), show engaged columns at the ground level of the portico.\u00a0 But in the Morgan plan I see piers with an indication of bases.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>19<\/sup> Although this colonnade or peristyle is not mentioned in the specifications of 1528, Dimier, 1900, 250, thought that it was built at the time that the Porte Dor\u00e9e was constructed.\u00a0 Gebelin, 1927, 98, considered it an early work of Le Breton.\u00a0 But it first appears in the documents between 1540 and 1550 in regard to a payment to a painter who had \u201c\u00e9toff\u00e9 \u00e0 huile\u201d the railings of the terrace (Laborde, I, 1877, 190; Dimier, 1898, 93; Gebelin, 1927, 102, n. 13; Bray, 1940, 201; Pressouyre, 1974, 30-31).\u00a0 However, Dimier, 1900, 250, pointed out that the specifications of 1528 (Laborde, I, 1877, 38-39; Dimier, 1900, 246-247) indicate that \u201cun perron en forme d\u2019une terrasse\u201d was to be built to cover an awkward triangle of space at the west end of the courtyard just to the right of where the portico and staircase would be built.\u00a0 In the sixteenth century, according to Dimier, \u201cperron\u201d meant a \u201cmassif de pierre\u201d and not a kind of staircase as it does today. For Dimier, the \u201cperron\u201d in the form of a terrace was part of the extensive colonnade that surrounds much of the Cour Ovale.\u00a0 But there is no certainty that this was the case.\u00a0 It could have been a terrace that was demolished when the full colonnade was built, or if a colonnade, an isolated one in the courtyard that was extended in 1541 or shortly thereafter.\u00a0 But as it now exists, after some rebuilding, it is true, it looks as though the colonnade was built after the portico which it abuts on two sides, for one would expect that the sides of the portico would have been designed somewhat differently if the portico was built in relationship to an already existing colonnade supporting a terrace carried by beams rather than arches.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/a>20<\/sup> See Adh\u00e9mar, 1954, 316; and Blunt, 1973, 73.\u00a0 The earliest mention of Serlio in France is found in letters of 27 December 1541 (Laborde, I, 1877, 172; and Gebelin, 1927, 103, n. 17) that granted him a pension of 400 livres in regard to \u201cpeintre et architecture ordinaire du roi au fait de ses dits \u00e9difices et b\u00e2timents \u00e0 Fontainebleau.\u201d\u00a0 But this does not necessarily mean that he was not there somewhat earlier.\u00a0 Blunt stated that Serlio\u2019s \u201cposition in relation to the royal palaces is not altogether clear, but he seems to have acted primarily in an advisory capacity, and none of the executed buildings can be attributed to him.\u201d\u00a0 Dimier, 1900, 148-149, said that Serlio is the author of nothing at Fontainebleau, although earlier authors thought the Cour Ovale was by him.\u00a0 Hence, for several reasons, the re-introduction of this attribution has to be made with much reservation.\u00a0 Recalling DeLorme\u2019s later criticisms of the construction of various parts of the ch\u00e2teau under Le Breton\u2019s direction (see Dimier, 1900, 147-148), one might wonder if the staircase was ordered demolished because it was badly built and was about to collapse.\u00a0 If so, this could have prompted a reconsideration of the appearance of the whole Cour Ovale and the decision not to rebuild the external staircase and to add the colonnade.\u00a0 Serlio could have advised this without actually having designed the colonnade.\u00a0 Gebelin, 1927, 98, attributed the colonnade to Le Breton.\u00a0 See also Medea, 1932, 72-73, who accepted the attribution to Le Breton and believed that the Cour Ovale was probably built between 1528 and 1534.<\/div>\n
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<\/a>21<\/sup> B\u00e9guin, \u201cMa\u00eetre Roux,\u201d 1972, 102, suggested her acceptance of Chastel\u2019s attribution.\u00a0 Vanaise, 1973, 176, n. 53, did not accept it because it does not fit his chronology of events at Fontainebleau, but he did not argue his case.\u00a0 Orazi, 1982, 133-141, Figs. 219-231, thought the stairway of 1531 was strictly functional, implying no architectural character, and that the staircase of 1540 [sic<\/em>] was a totally new project by Vignola, who wished to create a new Roman Capitoline in the modest space of the Cour Ovale.\u00a0 For Orazi, the destruction and rebuilding in a changed form took place in 1548-1550.\u00a0 Prinz and Kecks, 1985, 287-289, Fig. 323, 356, n. 20, 426, did not discuss the attribution of the original staircase to Rosso, but brought up Serlio\u2019s name in relation to its rebuilding in 1541.\u00a0 It still seems to me that Chastel gives the clearest and most acceptable interpretation of the facts and that his attribution to Rosso is more likely than those to Serlio and Vignola.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(reconstructed and rebuilt with new stone), Cour Ovale, Ch\u00e2teau, Fontainebleau 1531-1532 Fig.Portico The attribution to Rosso of the design of the portico and of the exterior staircase, which was once joined to it, in the Cour Ovale at Fontainebleau was suggested by Chastel (1967; 1978, I, 455-468).\u00a0 He based his attribution upon the reconstruction made […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"parent":821,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-6784","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6784"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6784\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8998,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6784\/revisions\/8998"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}