Antiquity and Modernity: Sixteenth- to Eighteenth-Century French Architecture

With the exception of Italy, France is only rivalled by Spain for the number of Roman ruins it boasts. In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, remnants of classical edifices were an integral part of the urban landscape. Many owed their survival to economic considerations, since it was often more profitable to preserve or transform than to destroy them. It was thus that city walls, even those which reductions in the urban population had rendered disproportionately large, were conserved; city gates and triumphal arches were often transformed into fortresses; sometimes triumphal arches were incorporated into new city walls or new buildings. Theatres and amphitheatres, generally invaded by houses, were integrated into fortifications or transformed into citadels or bastions. Temples were frequently converted into churches (Temple of Augustus and Livia in Vienne, Temple of Diana in Nîmes) and only demolished when they became too small to accommodate growing congregations. Aqueducts were often repaired and extended and sometimes served as toll gates (Pont du Gard). Thermal waters continued to be exploited and baths were rebuilt when they had been destroyed by cataclysms and restored when damaged by either Christians or barbarians; thermal complexes, like those in Paris (hôtel de Cluny), were often divided into lots and taken over by shopkeepers and craftsmen; in the Cimiez neighbourhood of Nice, the western baths became the site of the cathedral and its baptistery. Transformed as they were, these edifices nevertheless continued to provide a rich formal and decorative repertory that local artists naturally drew inspiration from. During the Romanesque period, the approach to this repertory was typically piecemeal: rather than seeking global models, the artists of the time tended to single out classical elements which furthered their own original aims.1 The obviously intentional citations made by Provencal artists of the period offer a particularly eloquent example, but other regions, including those of Narbonne, Poitiers, Angoulême