François Ier

Francis I King of France from 1515 to 1547.

A very important king in the history of France. He became king when he was 23 years old. He had already had much experience and an excellent education and managed to be a great ruler right off the bat. 

He is responsible for truly bringing the Italian Renaissance to France. He was a huge patron of the arts and his objective was to fill the French courts and museums with a dazzling display of Italain art and furniture. He poured enormous amounts of money in building the fairy tale-style chateaux we see today in the Loire Valley: Château d'Amboise, Château  de Blois, and bien sur the famous Château de Chambord (to name a few!).

Château d'Amboise

Château  de Blois

Château de Chambord

Leonardo da Vinci designed the famous double-helix staircase.

He also rebuilt the Louvre, transforming it into much of the grand palace we see today. 

Francis I was a man of letters and a very good poet in his own right. He named French as the national language of France, replacing Latin. He opened colleges that taught Greek, hebrew, and Arabic. 

Henry the VIII (yup, the bad guy in The Tudors) of England and Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire were his sworn enemies. He therefore was the first Christian leader to make a pact with the Muslim Ottoman Empire which lasted for many years. Europe was shocked when he made the deal as the last century and a half had been spent fighting off the Turks from invading Europe through Romania and Hungry (think Vlad the Impaler).

He also sent explorers to the New World (Americas) from Lyon (of all places!), the explorers claimed Newfoundland for the French crown as well as ... get this! ... New Angoulême, which is today, New York City.

All in all, he was an amazing king. The only downfalls he had were: he lost most of his wars putting a great financial strain on France and he persecuted Protestants, having many of them massacred, spinning France in a decades long religious war.

 When we visited the Château d'Amboise, the tour guide told us of the Amboise Conspiracy: in 1560 during Francis I's son's reign, 1200 Protestants were hanged (it took them a whole month to hang all of them) and hung by iron hooks from the balcony of the castle. The royal court had to leave town as the smell of rotting corpses was so overpowering! Charming!

The rotting corpses hung from the balcony right in the middle.

To end on a positive note, Francis I was responsible for bringing Leonardo da Vinci to France from Florence. Leonardo brought the Mona Lisa with him, or La Jaconde as they call it here in France as well as other major works. Francis I and Leonardo were extremely close, it is said that the king held the Renaissance Man's head in his arms as he died. 

Voila! Gros bisous de l'histoire et a demain.

Love, Charley