French Renaissance architecture

French Renaissance architecture

Top: Château de Chambord; Château de Chenonceau: Center: Azay le Rideau; Château de Fontainebleau; Bottom: Lescot Wing of Louvre
Years active	Late 15th – early 17th centuries

French Renaissance architecture is a style which was prominent between the late 15th and early 17th centuries in the Kingdom of France. It succeeded French Gothic architecture. The style was originally imported from Italy after the Hundred Years' War by the French kings Charles VII, Louis XI, Charles VIII, Louis XII and François I. Several notable royal châteaux in this style were built in the Loire Valley, notably the Château de Montsoreau, the Château de Langeais, the Château d'Amboise, the Château de Blois, the Château de Gaillon and the Château de Chambord, as well as, closer to Paris, the Château de Fontainebleau.

This style of French architecture had two distinct periods. During the first period, between about 1491 and 1540, the Italian style was copied directly, often by Italian architects and craftsmen. In the second period, between 1540 and the end of the Valois dynasty in 1589, French architects and craftsmen gave the style a more distinctive and original French character.^[1]

The major architects of the style included the royal architects Philibert Delorme, Pierre Lescot and Jean Bullant, as well as the Italian architect and architectural theorist Sebastiano Serlio.^[2][3]