1537\/1538-1540<\/p>\n
Pavillon des Po\u00eales, Ch\u00e2teau, Fontainebleau.<\/p>\n
Vasari, 1568, II, 210-211 (Vasari-Milanesi, V, 169): \u201cFece poi [after the Gallery of Francis I] un\u2019altra sala, chiamata il padiglione, perche e sopra il primo piano delle stanze di sopra, che viene \u00e0 essere l\u2019ultima sopra tutte l\u2019altre, e in forma di padiglione, laquale stanza condusse dal piano del pavimento fino agl\u2019arcibanchi, con varii, e belli ornamenti di stucchi, e figure tutte tonde spartite con equal distanza, con putti, Festoni, e varie sorti d\u2019animali.\u00a0 E negli spartimenti de\u2019 piani, no [sic] una figura \u00e0 fresco \u00e0 sedere, in si gran numero, che in essi si veggiono figurati tutti gli Dei, e Dee degl\u2019antichi, e gentili.\u00a0 E nel fine sopra le finestre e un fregio tutto ornato di stucchi, e richissimo, ma senza pitture.\u201d1<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n This passage follows immediately upon Vasari\u2019s description of the Gallery of Francis I and describes the only other work of decoration by Rosso in France of which he gives an extensive account.\u00a0 The room that Rosso decorated was identified by Dimier as the Salle Haute on the second or top floor of the destroyed Pavillon des Po\u00eales at Fontainebleau.2<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 The construction of this pavilion was probably begun around 1537, very possibly under Rosso\u2019s direction and from his designs (see L.42<\/a>).\u00a0 The length and breadth of the interior of the Salle Haute were approximately 19.3 by 8.8 meters; it was probably about 6 meters high.3<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 It had arcades on the west, south, and east sides, and hence, as Vasari said, the \u201cforma di padiglione.\u201d\u00a0 On the short east and west sides there were three arches, on the long south side, five.\u00a0 The arches appear entirely open in Du Cerceau\u2019s views and in the Barberini tapestry cartoon (Fig.Du Cerceau Print, Gallery<\/a>; Fig.Du Cerceau, Basse Cour, East Front<\/a>; Fig.Du Cerceau Print, Cour de la Fontaine<\/a> and Fig.Barberini Tapestry Cartoon reversed<\/a>), giving the top floor of the pavilion the aspect of a belvedere, but they were actually fitted with casement windows, which are mentioned in the specifications for the woodwork of this room (see below).<\/p>\n Above the arches, piers, and spandrels on three sides of the room there would have been a continuous band of wall.\u00a0 There would also have been a continuous area of wall, probably about a meter high, enclosing the room beneath the arches and the casement windows.\u00a0 The north side would probably have had a blind arcade and a doorway in the second bay from the west end leading to the stairway in the exterior tower (a rectangular window at the far east visible in Du Cerceau\u2019s view of the Cour de la Fontaine [Fig.Du Cerceau Print, Cour de la Fontaine<\/a>] may be a later addition).\u00a0 The ceiling would have been flat; although it is likely that it had wood beams and probably coffering, there are no records that pertain to it and to its appearance.<\/p>\n In considering how this room was decorated, account has to be taken not only of Vasari\u2019s description but also of the few pertinent remarks about it made by Dan in the seventeenth century.4<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 Dan saw the second floor of the Pavillon des Po\u00eales only after it had been divided into two rooms and decorated anew around 1577.5<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 But something of its original decoration survived.\u00a0 Dan wrote that the two rooms were \u201cenrichies et orn\u00e9es de figures de relief de stuc, lesquelles sont au dessous du platfond, et entre lesquelles se voyent les Chiffres et les Devises de Fran\u00e7ois I. de Charles IV. de Henry le Grand, et de la Duchess de Beaufort: ce qui fait juger que ces ornements ont est\u00e9 commencez par les Roys Fran\u00e7ois, et Charles, et continuez et achevez par le feu Roy.<\/p>\n \u201cQuant au lambry de la premier Chambre, los [sic] Salamandres donnent \u00e0 connoistre de qui il est:…\u201d<\/p>\n The major decoration that Dan subsequently described is twenty-seven paintings of scenes of the Life of Hercules that were divided between the two rooms.\u00a0 Some of these paintings would probably have replaced a part of the decoration of the original single room.<\/p>\n From Vasari, from Dan, and from the record of the agreement made with Scibec for the woodwork of the room (see below), the general scheme of the decoration of the Salle Haute done during the reign of Francis I can be envisioned.\u00a0 The lower part of all four sides, including the embrasures of the doorways and casement windows up to the lower level of the fresco and stucco decoration, was covered with sunken panels of wainscoting in walnut decorated in low relief with the arms and devices of the king, which included salamanders.\u00a0 On the east, west, and south sides each section of wainscoting had a bench supported by two legs in the form of balusters.\u00a0 Alongside and between the doors were benches.\u00a0 This arrangement would have been similar to that in the Gallery of Francis I.\u00a0 Immediately beneath the ceiling and above the arches was a stucco frieze and between it and the wainscoting the frescoed seated gods and goddesses evenly spaced around the room and surrounded by stucco ornament in high relief of figures, putti, garlands, and animals.\u00a0 Included in the decoration were emblems of Francis I. \u00a0The seated figures would have been painted on the walls between the windows, one on each pier.\u00a0 The two wall surfaces of each corner pier were smaller and may, therefore, have received other decoration.\u00a0 Because Vasari makes a special point of the large number of seated gods and goddesses that were painted in this room, it is reasonable to assume that they were also depicted on the piers of the blind arcade of the north wall.\u00a0 If this was the case one can calculate that there were twelve seated figures, not counting the angled piers in the corners, or twenty if the four corner piers had two figures, one on each face.\u00a0 No evidence indicates what might have filled the five arched wall areas of the north wall.<\/p>\n Three of the seated gods and goddesses planned by Rosso are known.\u00a0 Apollo<\/i> is known from a drawing by Rosso in the Louvre (Fig.D.76Aa<\/a>), from an anonymous engraving derived from it (Fig.E.151<\/a>), and from an etching possibly by Du Cerceau based on a lost drawing (Fig.E.60<\/a>).\u00a0 Venus<\/i> is seen in an anonymous etching (Fig.E.152<\/a>) and Diana<\/i> in another etching attributed to Du Cerceau (Fig.E.61<\/a>), both most likely derived from lost drawings by Rosso.\u00a0 All the figures are placed in a vertical format that corresponds to what the shape of the piers of the Salle Haute would have been.\u00a0 In the drawing and the etchings the sides of the vertical area in which the figures are placed are indented in the same rectangular manner, indicating that the images were made for the same project.\u00a0 In the Apollo<\/i> drawing the top and bottom of the area containing the figure are arched, while in the etchings the tops and bottoms are rectangular.\u00a0 Because the etched Apollo<\/i> appears to show a later version of this figure, it seems probable that the figures executed in the Salle Haute were in areas squared above and below.\u00a0 (The flayed arm and hand of Marsyas that appear in the Louvre drawing and the engraving have been changed into a furry tail or plume in the etching, probably because the etcher did not understand what was described in Rosso\u2019s lost drawing).\u00a0 It is not possible to tell from the drawing or the prints how large the frescoed figures were intended to be.\u00a0 But given the height of the piers in this room – about 3.5 meters – one might suppose that the figures were at least life-size. \u00a0The etchings of Diana<\/i> and Apollo<\/i> show by perspective rendering at the sides that the figures were to be painted on raised slabs, or to have this appearance.<\/p>\n There is one other image that could just possibly be related to the decoration of the Salle Haute.\u00a0 A cartouche by Fantuzzi showing a half-circle and a full circle surmounted by figures, putti, a satyr, masks, and garlands (Fig.E.88<\/a>) is clearly only about half of a longer composition.\u00a0 The section at the left could be extended as a circle or an oval, but in either case would have been contained within a large oval frame.\u00a0 To the left of that oval the full motif at the right in the etching would have been repeated, probably with some variation.\u00a0 At the far right the cartouche ends with a head set on two volutes of strapwork, one turned to the left, the other to the right.\u00a0 Above and below is a garland of fruit and leaves.\u00a0 The extension of the right volute is unlike the termination of any section of frame in the Gallery of Francis I.\u00a0 It is just possible that the head with its volute and garlands is an element that would join this whole cartouche to another like it.\u00a0 A sequence of such cartouches would form a frieze, and one, given the evidence of the etching, that could have been entirely executed in stucco.\u00a0 Thus this etching could represent a section of the stucco frieze that Vasari says ran around the top of the Salle Haute.\u00a0 The reclining woman with a crescent moon above her forehead would seem to be Diana, a subject that is related to the seated gods and goddesses that were painted on the piers of this room.\u00a0 The repetition of Diana would not have been impossible, especially at Fontainebleau with its sylvan setting.\u00a0 But as this etching would have been made from a drawing and not from the decoration itself, the specific identification of this figure, if it was used, could have been changed.\u00a0 If Vasari is correct in saying that the frieze in the Salle Haute contained no paintings, then the circular areas in the etching, in which Fantuzzi placed landscapes, would have been intended for stucco reliefs, as on the west wall of the Gallery of Francis I.\u00a0 What is missing from the etching is any reference to Francis I, whose symbols were contained within the stucco decoration of the room, as Dan reported.\u00a0 However, there is no indication of just where they were and they need not have appeared in the frieze.6<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n The style of Rosso\u2019s Apollo<\/i>, Diana<\/i>, and Venus<\/i> indicates a date for them around 1537 or 1538.\u00a0 Therefore it would seem that the decoration of the Salle Haute was planned just as the Gallery of Francis I was being completed.7<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 No documents are known specifically related to the decoration of the Salle Haute within Rosso\u2019s lifetime.8<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 However, the agreement of February 25, 1542 (modern style) with Francisque Scibec for the woodwork to be made for this room,9<\/sup><\/a> as well as for the Galerie Basse (L.44<\/a>) of the Pavillon des Po\u00eales, indicates that the painting and stuccowork in the Salle Haute were done by this time.\u00a0 Dimier believed that the execution of Rosso\u2019s decoration was begun before Rosso died and was finished thereafter under the supervision of Primaticcio, the only other artist who \u201cdirected\u201d work at Fontainebleau.\u00a0 In the Comptes<\/i> of the period between 1 January 1541 and 30 September 1550 there are two records of payment, first to \u201cpaintres\u201d for \u201couvrages de paintures,\u201d but also to a long list of \u201cpaintres,\u201d \u201cpaintres doreurs,\u201d \u201cimagers,\u201d and \u201cplusieurs manouvrier[s],\u201d and then to \u201cpaintres et imagers\u201d for painting done in the \u201csalle haulte.\u201d10<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 The first payment to \u201cpaintres\u201d for painting in the Salle Haute is to painters who are known earlier to have been assistants to Primaticcio, as distinct from those who are known to have worked under Rosso.\u00a0 But Primaticcio was away from Fontainebleau from before Rosso\u2019s death in November 1540 until shortly after the end of October 1541.\u00a0 What is possible is that the stuccoes and painting of the Salle Haute were designed by Rosso around 1537 or 1538 and partly executed by his assistants until he died.\u00a0 The stucco and painted decoration were then finished by Primaticcio\u2019s assistants in the autumn of 1541, by the time that Scibec agreed to make the woodwork of the room on February 15, 1542.11<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 The woodwork, the general arrangement of which Rosso would have been acquainted with, was then specifically designed by Scibec early in 1542.\u00a0 Scibec was paid for the completed woodwork sometime before, and probably well before, September 30, 1550.12<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a>1<\/sup> For a discussion of the \u201cno\u201d that appears in this passage, see Vasari-Bettarini-Barocchi, IV, 1976, 687-688.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/a>3<\/sup> On the measurements of the plan, see L.42<\/a>.\u00a0 From these the height can be calculated from Du Cerceau\u2019s view from the Cour de la Fontaine (Fig.Du Cerceau Print, Cour de la Fontaine<\/a>).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/a>5<\/sup> See L.42<\/a>; on the lost paintings by Toussaint Dubreuil and Ruggiero de Ruggieri, see Dan, 1642, 129-131; Dimier, 1898, 114; Dimier, 1900, 319; Herbet, 1937, 126; B\u00e9guin, 1964, 89-93; and Claude Lauriol, in EdF<\/i>, 1972, 482, and in Fontainebleau<\/i>, 1973, 154-155.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/a>7<\/sup> Vasari mentions the Salle Haute immediately after stating that the king gave Rosso a \u201ccanonicato nella Santa Capella della Madonna di Parigi.\u201d\u00a0 If this refers to his canonicate at Notre Dame, which he received on 26 December 1537, rather than to the canonicate at Sainte Chapelle that is reported to have been obtained in 1532, then this placement might give further support to the dating of the design of the decoration of this room in these years.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/a>8<\/sup> Dimier, 1898, 113, and 1900, 52, cited a record of payments from the period 1538-1540 that would indicate that work was being done in the Pavillon des Po\u00eales before Rosso\u2019s death and quite likely under his direction.\u00a0 But the only room mentioned is the \u201cgrande salle\u201d on the first floor (see L.45<\/a>).\u00a0 Dimier, wrongly, I believe, thought this referred to the Salle Haute.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/a>9<\/sup> Paris, National Archives, where it should be among the papers of J. Trouv\u00e9, XIX, 154-157.<\/p>\n February 25, 1542 (modern style).<\/p>\n Fut pr\u00e9sent Francisque Scibecq, dit de Carpy, menuysier italien dem. \u00e0 Paris, lequel recongnut et confessa et par ces pr\u00e9sentes confesse avoir faict convenance et march\u00e9 avec Messire Nicolas de Neufville, chevalier, sgr de Villeroy, conseiller du Roy, n.s., et secr\u00e9taire de ses Finances, et \u00e0 Philbert Babou, aussi chevalier, sgr de la Bourdaizi\u00e8re, conseiller dud. sgr. secr\u00e9taire de ses Finances et tr\u00e9sorier de France, commissaires ordonnez et d\u00e9putez par led. sgr sur le faict de ses bastimens et \u00e9diffices de Fontainebleau, de faire pour le Roy en la salle par hault du grant pavillon du cost\u00e9 de l\u2019estang de son chasteau de Fontainebleau les ouvraiges de lambruys de menuyserie qu\u2019il convient faire de neuf contre les murs en quatre sens au pourtour de lad. salle du long et l\u00e9 d\u2019icelle et dedans les embrasemens des murs \u00e0 l\u2019endoict des crois\u00e9es et huisseries depuis le rez de [blank] du plancher de lad. salle jusques \u00e0 la haulteur des ouvraiges de painture et stucq qui sont faictz en icelle salle, lesquelz lambruys seront garniz de dossiers enfoncez, et entre une crois\u00e9e \u00e0 l\u2019aultre tant sur les deux boutz de la salle que sur le devant faire un doulcin de lambruys garny d\u2019un grant penneau au meillieu portant moulleures tout au pourtour enrichies de taille antique \u00e0 demi bosse avec armoiries et divises du Roy et \u00e0 l\u2019endroit et chacun desd. penneaulx faire et \u00e9riger ung si\u00e8ge de la longueur d\u2019icelluy de telle saillye et haulteur qu\u2019il apartiendra aussi portant mouslures tout \u00e0 l\u2019entour, port\u00e9 et soustenu \u00e0 deux piedz tournez en fa\u00e7on de balustre, et du cost\u00e9 des huisseries faire deux grands pans de lambruys de menuyserie portans mousleures et enrichissemens comme les autres, et \u00e0 l\u2019endroit de chacun d\u2019iceulx faire et \u00e9riger une si\u00e8ge de la longueur du pan qui sera de saillye et haulteur telle que dessus, aussi faire les huisseries de boys de noyer des fa\u00e7on antique et enrichissements susd., et entre lesd. huisseries faire ung petit pan de menuyserie garny de si\u00e8ge de la longueur qu\u2019il apartiendra et de la fa\u00e7on que les aultres.\u00a0 Plus faire le planchement d\u2019assemblaige de menuyserie du parterre sur le plancher de lad. salle de la longeur et largeur d\u2019icelle, et dedans les embrasemens et espoisseur desd. murs, de beau et bon boys de chesne \u00e0 lorenges et carrez faicts et assemblez en lassures, portans filletz ou nerveures de boys de noyer pour courvrir les chevilles desd. assemblaiges, qui sera assis sur lambourdes de charpenterie qui pour ce faire seront faictes par les maistres charpentiers du Roy aux despens dud sgr. [follows a description of the woodwork for the Galerie Basse, for which, see L.44<\/a>]…et tous lesd. ouvraiges faire et parfaire, assembler et asseoir bien et deument comme il apartient selon les patrons et devises pour ce faictz a dit de menuysiers experts et gens \u00e0 ce congnoissans en la plus grande et extr\u00e8me dilligence et au plus grand nombre d\u2019ouvriers que faire se pourra… et par led. Francisque fournir, querir et livrer \u00e0 ses despens tout le boys de noyer qu\u2019il conviendra pour ce, faire cheriages…, peine d\u2019ouvriers…, et ce moyennant et parmy la somme de trois mil livres t. pour tous lesd. ourvraiges…,. prom., obl., ren.\u00a0 Fait pass\u00e9 double l\u2019an mil Vc<\/sup> quarente et ung le samedy vingt cinquiesme jour de f\u00e9vrier.<\/p>\n J. Trouv\u00e9 (Registre)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n [Copied from Roy, 1929, 260-261, but not checked against the original document.\u00a0 The document mentioned by Roy on p. 246 as this one is actually the payment to Scibec for the work, for which, see below.]<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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