PREFACE.

...was based on the designs and under the guidance of Cossutius, a Roman citizen.

Finally, the love of Architecture and the magnificence of Buildings reached such an excess that a private house was found to cost nearly fifty million The author likely refers to fifty million sesterces, an astronomical sum in Roman currency., and an Aedile a Roman magistrate responsible for public buildings and festivals had a Theater built in less than a year, adorned with three hundred and sixty Columns. Those of the lower level, which were of marble, were forty-two feet high; those of the middle were of bronze, and those of the third order were of crystal. It is said that this Theater, which could hold eighty thousand seated people, was further embellished by three thousand Bronze Statues; and it is added that this building, so magnificent, was intended to serve for only six weeks.

Historians also report that another Aedile built a Fountain, upon whose Aqueduct there were one hundred and thirty inspection points or water towers; that this Fountain was adorned with four hundred marble Columns and three hundred bronze Figures; and that the water, which gushed from seven hundred jets, was received into more than one hundred basins. It is also noted that among all the Roman Laws, which were quite severe in repressing luxury and profusion, there was never one that prescribed or regulated the spending on Buildings—so much did this generous nation venerate everything that serves to honor virtue and that can leave marks of it for Posterity.

France has shown no less clearly that spirit and courage can exist together in great souls, and that they only wait for favorable opportunities to resolve to reveal the various wonders they can produce.

Before the reign of Francis I, most Princes had so little taste for the fine Arts that anything unrelated to war could not move them; and it seemed that Hunting, Tournaments, and the game of Chess—which are images of War—were the only pleasures of which they were capable. Even the Ball was performed only to the sound of the Fife and the Drum, and Architecture gave no other form to their Palaces than that of a fortress. Consequently, the most noble Artisans, whose genius could have produced something more finished and refined, were like excellent instruments that remained useless. But as soon as this Prince—who deserved the name of the first Father of the Arts and Sciences—demonstrated his love for beautiful things, one saw appear, as if in an instant and in every profession, excellent men provided by his Kingdom, who did not long require the help and teachings they received from Foreigners.

Caesar, in his Commentaries original: "Commentaires"; referring to Julius Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico (Commentaries on the Gallic War), testifies that he was surprised to see the great wooden Towers and other machines of war that the Gauls had constructed in imitation of those in his own Army; he admired that a people who had never employed anything in war but a singular bravery had become so skillful in such a short time in the other Arts.

When Sebastiano Serlio An Italian Mannerist architect whose books on architecture became a standard for the Renaissance, one of the greatest Architects of his time, came from Italy to France (where he composed the excellent Books of Architecture that we have from him), our Architects benefited so well from his instructions that when the King ordered work on the design for the Louvre—which he undertook to have built with all possible beauty and magnificence—the design of a Frenchman was preferred to the one Serlio had made. This design was subsequently executed by the King's Architects; and perfection was found to such a high degree in this first essay by our French Architects that even Foreigners admitted that what...