The entire front
is divided into compartments by slender and lengthened buttresses and
pilasters. The intervening spaces are filled with basso-relievos,
evidently executed at one period, though by different masters. A
banquet beneath a window in the first floor, is in a good _cinque-cento_
style. Others of the basso-relievos, represent the labors of the field
and the vineyard; rich and fanciful in their costume, but rather wooden
in their design: the Salamander, the emblem of Francis Ist, appears
several times amongst the ornaments, and very conspicuously. I believe
there is not a single square foot of this extraordinary building, which
has not been sculptured.--On the north side extends a spacious gallery.
Here the architecture is rather in Holbein's manner: foliaged and
swelling pilasters, like antique candelabra, bound the arched windows.
Beneath, is the well-known series of bas-reliefs, executed on marble
tablets, representing the interview between Francis Ist of France, and
Henry VIIIth of England, in the _Champ du Drap d'or_, between Guisnes
and Ardres.
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