1536\/1537-1540?<\/p>\n
Ch\u00e2teau, Fontainebleau.<\/p>\n
Toward the end of Guillaume\u2019s arguments (B\u00e9guin, Guillaume, Roy, 1985, 9-43) supporting his reconstruction of the architecture of the destroyed Gallery of Ulysses at Fontainebleau he wrote: \u201cComme on l\u2019a fait pour le premier escalier de la tour Ovale [A.2<\/a>], nous sommes tent\u00e9s d\u2019attribuer \u00e0 Rosso… la paternit\u00e9 de ce projet….\u00a0 Tout indique que Rosso – associ\u00e9 \u00e0 Primaticcio? – a conseill\u00e9 le roi en 1536 … l\u2019id\u00e9e d\u2019une longue galerie vo\u00fbt\u00e9e, allant du ch\u00e2teau au jardin des Pins.\u201d\u00a0 Guillaume, who also mentioned (B\u00e9guin, Guillaume, Roy, 1985, 64) 1537 as the year in which Rosso proposed it to the king, related the building of this gallery, which was 155.20 meters long, to the construction of the Pavillon des Po\u00eales, the terrace of which on its south side above the Galerie Basse was at the same level and had the same breadth and alignment as the Gallery of Ulysses.\u00a0 This terrace was one of several that connected various parts of the ch\u00e2teau, including the Gallery of Francis I, to the Pavillon des Po\u00eales.\u00a0 It was from the terrace on the south side of that pavilion that one entered the Gallery of Ulysses.\u00a0 Guillaume thought that the Pavillon des Po\u00eales was begun in 1536 or 1537 and thus this would also be the date of the beginning of work on the Long Gallery (only later called the Gallery of Ulysses), although the decision to build it would have preceded the building of that pavilion.\u00a0 It is likely, although Guillaume did not say so, that that pavilion was designed by Rosso (L.42<\/a>).<\/p>\n Guillaume argued that according to the plan for the ch\u00e2teau of 1527 the south wing of the Basse Cour, the wing that became the Gallery of Ulysses, was originally an open gallery at ground level only with a pavilion at each end.\u00a0 (Guillaume supposed that this gallery would have had a pitched roof with dormer windows to match the north wing of the Basse Cour.)\u00a0 It was completed in 1531 and extended as far east as the north wing did, stopping short of the east wing of the Basse Cour by about twenty-one meters.1<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 But around 1536 the plan for the south wing was changed.\u00a0 The twenty buttresses of its south wall were strengthened, the east pavilion was destroyed, and a new and more solidly built extension was added to link the south wing to the east wing.\u00a0 Thus the gallery was joined to the Pavillon des Po\u00eales, the construction of which would have just begun.\u00a0 The Pavillon des Po\u00eales was set about three meters closer to the center axis of the Basse Cour than the corresponding pavilion to the north.\u00a0 This slight displacement allowed for the gallery comprising the south wing of the Basse Cour to meet the Pavillon des Po\u00eales at its south side so that the width and upper level of the gallery coincided with the width and level of the terrace above the Galerie Basse that flanked the ground level of the Pavillon des Po\u00eales.\u00a0 On top of the reinforced open gallery and its strongly built extension was constructed a pseudo-vaulted gallery that subsequently became known as the Gallery of Ulysses because of the subjects of its much later decoration.<\/p>\n According to Guillaume\u2019s reconstruction (illustrated in B\u00e9guin, Guillaume, Roy, 1985, Figs. 16 and 25), there were difficulties with the junction of the Pavillon des Po\u00eales and the Gallery of Ulysses.\u00a0 The gallery extended more than a meter beyond the corner of the pavilion, covering the west corner of its south side but also overlapping the end of its west fa\u00e7ade.\u00a0 This unfortunate arrangement does not appear in Du Cerceau\u2019s view from the south, where the edge of the corner of the Gallery of Ulysses meets the edge of the corner of the pavilion.\u00a0 (It is not clear that Du Cerceau\u2019s plans show the overlapping.)\u00a0 Furthermore, Du Cerceau\u2019s view of the west front of the ch\u00e2teau (the east wing of the Basse Cour) does not show the gallery at all and thus presents the pavilion\u2019s southernmost corner intact and without any indication of the Galerie Basse and its terrace.\u00a0 Concerning the extension of the gallery over the corner of the pavilion, Guillaume wrote (B\u00e9guin, Guillaume, Roy, 1985, 42), after attributing the project to Rosso: \u201cLa prolongation de la galerie plus d\u2019un m\u00e8tre au-del\u00e0 de l\u2019angle du pavillon des Po\u00eales prouve… qu\u2019un peintre a pens\u00e9 d\u00e8s l\u2019origine au d\u00e9core int\u00e9rieur. \u00a0Pourquoi en effet aurait-on ainsi compliqu\u00e9 la construction si l\u2019on n\u2019avait souhait\u00e9 une trav\u00e9e entr\u00e9e assez longue, capable de porter un d\u00e9cor propre?\u201d\u00a0 The vaulting of this entrance bay was different from that of the rest of the gallery and, speaking of it when it became the Gallery of Ulysses, its decoration may not have been by Primaticcio (B\u00e9guin, Guillaume, Roy, 1985, 45-46).\u00a0 It appears on Guillaume\u2019s plan (B\u00e9guin, Guillaume, Roy, 1985, 46-47, Fig. 38) measuring about 6.25 meters wide and slightly less than six long.\u00a0 To the top of the vault, the gallery and its entrance bay were about eight meters high (see B\u00e9guin, Guillaume, Roy, 1985, 51, Fig. 46 of the interior of end walls).\u00a0 The entrance wall facing the terrace of the Pavillon des Po\u00eales is only barely visible in Du Cerceau\u2019s views but is more completely seen in Isra\u00ebl Sylvestre\u2019s view (Fig.Sylvestre, Ulysse<\/a>), where it also appears more extensively articulated with pilasters (or engaged columns) and a cornice, a doorway with engaged columns and a (rounded?) pediment, and oval windows with grills between the pilasters and in the center of the triangular wall above the cornice.2<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n From the evidence of Du Cerceau\u2019s plans and views it could be concluded that originally the Pavillon des Po\u00eales was to terminate the south end of the west wing of the ch\u00e2teau without the Long Gallery attached to it, for this arrangement is what Du Cerceau\u2019s print of the west front shows, even though that print was made many years after the gallery was built.\u00a0 The Galerie Basse is missing from his view possibly because it was an architectural feature that had no function in relation to the west front of the ch\u00e2teau.\u00a0 When he depicted both the gallery and the pavilion in his views from the south (in his print and in his drawing in the British Museum), Du Cerceau showed an ideal meeting of the corners of the pavilion and the gallery, not the actual arrangement as reconstructed by Guillaume.\u00a0 Guillaume believed that the elongation of the gallery over the corner of the pavilion was the result of an artistic intention to create an entrance bay to the gallery that could receive proper decoration that Rosso would have planned for it.\u00a0 Its interior proportions and decoration could have been a consideration, but it may be reasonable also to suggest that the extension of this room across the front of the adjacent pavilion was necessary, as it would have been impossible to have two such large buildings, the gallery and the pavilion, merely touch at the pointed edges of their corners.\u00a0 They had to be more firmly joined.\u00a0 This led to a disagreeable conjunction that Du Cerceau chose not to record.<\/p>\n Guillaume\u2019s attribution of this project to Rosso was also dependent on its relation to the long vaulted upper gallery, three-hundred meters long, of the east wing of the Belvedere of the Vatican, which he believed Rosso would have recalled and recommended to the king as a project to be emulated at Fontainebleau.\u00a0 Guillaume also pointed out that round windows like those on the south side of the Long Gallery were not found in France prior to the arrival of Rosso and Primaticcio in France.\u00a0 Before the arrival of Serlio one finds oculi, Guillaume stated (B\u00e9guin, Guillaume, Roy, 1985, 27-28, n. 42), in the Gallery of Francis I, such as the framed round frescoes flanking the Loss of Perpetual Youth<\/i> (Fig.P.22, II S a<\/a>).\u00a0 One might add the small round windows above the doors on the south side of the Galerie Basse (Fig.Du Cerceau Print, Gallery<\/a>), the architecture of which may well be by Rosso.<\/p>\n The awkward joining of the Long Gallery and the Pavillon des Po\u00eales, if Guillaume\u2019s reconstruction is correct, seems to me to indicate that the gallery was not foreseen when the pavilion was begun.\u00a0 It may be that what was planned was merely the joining of the original ground level gallery to the pavilion to form with it a long terrace on top of that gallery flanking the garden to the south.\u00a0 Only afterwards was the pseudo-vaulted gallery projected with an entrance from the terrace on the south side of the pavilion.\u00a0 As the time of the beginning of the decoration of the gallery post dates Rosso\u2019s death (see below), there is no way of knowing with certainty that the gallery was built, or its construction even begun, before Rosso died.\u00a0 Nor, for that matter, that it was conceived before he died.\u00a0 Thus the attribution of the project to him loses much of its credibility.<\/p>\n However, there still remains the possibility that Guillaume correctly intuited a relationship between the Gallery of Ulysses and Rosso.\u00a0 If Rosso designed the Pavillon des Po\u00eales, as I believe is likely, he would have planned it in relation to the already built open gallery, which would be extended eastward to meet it and form a long terrace above the gallery of the south side of the Basse Cour departing from the terrace above the Galerie Basse.\u00a0 In this case the meeting of the corners of the ground level of the pavilion and the open gallery would not have been a serious problem.\u00a0 (If Guillaume was correct in indicating that the open gallery had a roof with dormers, these would have to have been destroyed.)\u00a0 Then while the pavilion was being built, beginning probably in 1536 or 1537, Rosso may have seen that a closed gallery instead of a terrace could be added using the open one as its substructure.\u00a0 He had himself decorated the small Pavilion of Pomona that was situated just beyond the western end of that open gallery in a corner of what came to be called the Jardin des Pins.\u00a0 As the southern wing of the Basse Cour seems always to have been conceived as different from the northern wing, this may have been because it was always associated also with the large garden on its south side.\u00a0 It was, in fact, the south fronts of the ch\u00e2teau that became increasingly important at the ch\u00e2teau: the south front of the Gallery of Francis I, from which a south cabinet had been removed to make an unbroken south fa\u00e7ade, and the south front of the Pavillon des Po\u00eales, which overlooked the lake to the south and the garden that bordered it.\u00a0 What then would have been better than a long gallery overlooking that garden to provide a place with beautiful views for an inside promenade?\u00a0 Here Rosso, as Guillaume suggested, would have thought of the long gallery at the Vatican and would have proposed to the king a similar one to be set upon the south arcade.\u00a0 The project at hand, the Pavillon des Po\u00eales, had to be finished and at least partially decorated to lodge the emperor Charles V when he visited Fontainebleau in December 1539.\u00a0 If the idea for the enclosed gallery had been decided on by that time it could have been begun.\u00a0 Guillaume believed that it was already built by then.\u00a0 But the new enclosed gallery and its link to the Pavillon des Po\u00eales could have been built after Rosso\u2019s death.3<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 The exterior of the gallery lacked the plastic articulation of the portico and exterior staircase in the Cour Ovale and of the Pavillon des Po\u00eales, even on the garden side that could have had some relation to the south fa\u00e7ade of the Pavillon des Po\u00eales, so it is possible that what was actually built was not based on his design or on very extensive or detailed designs.\u00a0 Rosso may not have intended a vaulted or pseudo-vaulted gallery.<\/p>\n Guillaume\u2019s architectural reconstruction, but not his attribution to Rosso, was reviewed by Mignon, 1988, 9-11, 15-17, who in general agreed with his conclusions.\u00a0 Mignon\u2019s main interest was in determining a change in the east end of the gallery at the time that it became the Gallery of Ulysses around 1554-1556, when the easternmost small bay was turned into a vestibule by the addition of a partition wall between this small bay and the adjacent double bay.\u00a0 The fa\u00e7ade of this vestibule appears in the views of Du Cerceau and Sylvestre and shows motifs derived from what appears on the south wall of the gallery.\u00a0 But the east fa\u00e7ade appears less flat, perhaps to distinguish it.\u00a0 In Sylvestre\u2019s view it also seems to show ovals instead of the round windows of the long sides of the gallery.\u00a0 It is the gallery that existed before the vestibule was created that would, then, have been the gallery to which Rosso\u2019s name would be attached.\u00a0 It had sixteen bays, fourteen double and two small ones at the ends.\u00a0 It is not clear that it had the same fa\u00e7ade that appears in Sylvestre\u2019s print.\u00a0 Mignon believed that this was the gallery that was built for Francis I.<\/p>\n As the decorations that gave the Gallery of Ulysses its name were first begun in 1556, Mignon believed that there had been an earlier scheme of decoration of stuccoes, grotesques, and frescoed pictures in the manner of the Vatican Logge decorated by Raphael.\u00a0 The grotesques were by Fantuzzi and by others working from his cartoons.\u00a0 A payment to him for the frescoes and cartoons was made within the period of January 1, 1541 \u2013 September 30, 1550.4<\/sup><\/a> Even at its earliest this period falls after Rosso\u2019s death.<\/p>\n Guillaume\u2019s proposal that Rosso was responsible for the Long Gallery can be entertained only insofar as it pertains to the possibility that Rosso suggested that the long enclosed south gallery be built and linked to the terrace of the Pavillon des Po\u00eales.\u00a0 The evidence for this conclusion may not be extensive, but what there is suggests Rosso\u2019s involvement with this project.\u00a0 There is a reference in Vasari\u2019s \u201cLife\u201d of Primaticcio (1568, III, 798-799; Vasari-Milanesi, VII, 408) to a \u201clunga Galleria\u201d at Fontainebleau that had remained incomplete when Rosso died and was then finished by Primaticcio.\u00a0 While the substance of the passage mentioning a long gallery seems to be about the decoration of the Galerie Basse (see L.44<\/a>), Vasari\u2019s mistake in referring to the latter as a \u201clunga Galleria\u201d points to there having been one, which was, in fact, eventually transformed by Primaticcio.\u00a0 (The Galerie Basse had been completed by Primaticcio.)\u00a0 Unfortunately there is no evidence of any decoration that Rosso himself may have intended for the Long Gallery, nor that any such decoration was begun before he died.\u00a0 But if the conception of the Long Gallery was Rosso\u2019s, then it is likely that he contemplated some kind of decoration for it.5<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a>1<\/sup> See Laborde, I, 1877, 67-68; Pressouyre, 1974, 28; and B\u00e9guin, Guillaume, Roy, 1985, 26-27.\u00a0 The project for the south wing is referred to in the document recording a payment made in 1535 as \u201cgalleries \u00e0 jour en forme d\u2019esquere estant au bout dudit corps d\u2019hostel assis en la basse court de l\u2019abbaye dudit Fontainebleau et \u00e8s appuis du jardin du ch\u00e2teau dudit lieu, dedans lequel y a une fontaine.\u201d\u00a0 The gallery would be the one mentioned by Babelon, 1989, 200, as the long gallery or Gallery of Ulysses built in 1527-1531.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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