Page:Character of Renaissance Architecture.djvu/238

196 original design, each bay of which is nothing more than a reproduction of the scheme of a Roman triumphal arch, with a short pediment over the attic. The whole structure is raised on a high basement of plain character with lions' heads for water-spouts. Such pure imitation of the antique does the architect little credit as a designer, and it is hard to understand how such works could have been regarded as monuments of a regenerating art. The sculptures by Goujon which adorn this structure have, in my judgment, no monumental qualities, nor any notable merits of design. Their movements are awkward, and their lines ill composed. The influence of the decadent Italian art is marked in them, without any new qualities that should entitle them to distinction.

Little is known of the early training of Lescot beyond what is told in a poem by Ronsard, from which we learn that in his youth he had occupied himself with painting and geometry, and that at the age of twenty he began the study of architecture. He does not appear to have visited Italy, and his knowledge of ancient art must, therefore, have been acquired at second hand; very likely in great part through Serlio's book which had been published in 1537. A woodcut (Fig. 117) on page 127 of this book, giving the design of an ancient Roman arch in Verona, might have served as a model for the Fountain of the Nymphs. He must also have come in contact with Serlio himself, who in 1541 had been called into the service of the French king.

The capital work of Lescot was the early part of the new Louvre, begun about 1546 on the site of the old castle of Phihppe Auguste which Francis I had demolished in order to rebuild in the new style. The new scheme was apparently intended to cover almost precisely the same area that had been occupied by the mediæval structure, and the old foundations were to be utilized in the new building. Thus in conformity with the older castle Lescot's design embraced a square court; but only a part of this project was actually carried out, namely, the wings on the south and west sides. And of these the south wing afterward suffered a damaging alteration by the architect Lemercier who enlarged the court to about four times the area