“National” and “international” in the architecture of French Renaissance

Abstract

This article is dedicated to the problem of formation of national style in the architecture of French Renaissance. The indicated problem is the topic of intense discussion within the historiography of Renaissance. Leaning the concept of J. Burckhardt, who describes Renaissance as a specifically Italian phenomenon, a number of scholars identity French Renaissance with “Italianism”. On the other hand, there is a contradictory historiographical trend that acclaims national medieval tradition that views the revival of classical antiquity as a foreign and shallow phenomenon. An attempt is made to examine the problem from the perspective Renaissance itself, relying on the reasoning and assessments expressed by the three theoreticians of architecture: Sebastian Serlio, Philibert de l'Orme, and Jacques I Androuet du Cerceau. The conclusion is made that the theoreticians of French Renaissance were not prone to contrapose the shapes borrowed from antiquity to national tradition. They perceived antiquity as the common past of the entire contemporary to them culture. They did not see any preponderance of Italian Renaissance over the national culture. The contradiction between antiquity and Gothicism was interpreted as a contradiction between the ancient and the new, rather than foreign and native. In creation of the style of Renaissance architecture they resorted to synthesizing heritage of the antiquity with national medieval tradition.