The French Monarchy: French Gardens

The French adventures into Italy between 1494 and 1524 were disastrous for Italy and more often than not militarily disastrous for France, but they had a redeeming feature; they inoculated the French monarchy with the fever of the Renaissance. Charles VIII, having advanced triumphantly to Naples, was compelled to retreat in less distinguished fashion, but he took with him more than victory; he took twenty-two Italian artists and forty tons of objects d'art. A policy that within a generation brought Leonardo, Benvenuto Cellini, and many others of lesser fame though greater influence to live and work in France was not entirely barren of good effects. In their admiration for the Italian Renaissance the French began its destruction, but they did succeed in capturing for their own use a considerable part of its skills and its aesthetic sense. The civilization they found was in advance of their own and it went to their heads. Ill-disciplined mercenary armies were quartered upon the terraces and amongst the fountains and casually destroyed them. But the aristocracy was impressed, and when they returned to France they tried to emulate the higher life they had been privileged to witness. At first they seem to have acquired only the general notion of a widening world together with a good deal of ornamental detail what lay between and constituted the essential feature of an Italian garden they did not grasp for some time. The broad idea that the young Charles found acceptable on his first dramatic incursion was the very simple and attractive one of luxurious living. He had already enlarged somewhat the medieval garden at his favourite castle of Amboise, but after a brief sojourn at Naples at Alphonso's Poggio Reale it became sadly apparent to him that he had not enlarged it enough.