E RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE: Francois I.
and the Chateau of Fontainebleau--Influence on Courtiers, Chairs of the
time--Design of Cabinets--M.E. Bonnaffe on The Renaissance, Bedstead of
Jeanne d'Albret--Deterioration of taste in time of Henry IV., Louis
XIII. Furniture--Brittany woodwork. THE RENAISSANCE IN THE NETHERLANDS:
Influence of the House of Burgundy on Art--The Chimney-piece at Bruges,
and other casts of specimens at South Kensington Museum. THE
RENAISSANCE IN SPAIN: The resources of Spain in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries--Influence of Saracenic Art, high-backed leather
chairs, the Carthusian Convent at Granada. THE RENAISSANCE IN GERMANY:
Albrecht Duerer--Famous Steel Chair of Augsburg--German seventeenth
century carving in St. Saviour's Hospital. THE RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND:
Influence of Foreign Artists in the time of Henry VIII.--End of
Feudalism--Hampton Court Palace--Linen pattern Panels--Woodwork in the
Henry VII. Chapel at Westminster Abbey--Livery Cupboards at
Hengrave--Harrison quoted--the "parler," alteration in English
customs--Chairs of the sixteenth century--Coverings and Cushions of the
time, extract from old Inventory--South Kensington Cabinet--Elizabethan
Mirror at Goodrich Court--Shaw's "Ancient Furniture" the Glastonbury
Chair--Introduction of Frames into England--Characteristics of Native
Woodwork--Famous Country Mansions, alteration in design of Woodwork and
Furniture--Panelled Rooms at South Kensington--The Charterhouse--Gray's
Inn Hall and Middle Temple--The Hall of the Carpenter's Company--The
Great Bed of Ware--Shakespeare's Chair--Penshurst Place.

[Illustration]

It is impossible to write about the period of the Renaissance without
grave misgivings as to the ability to render justice to a period which has
employed the pens of many cultivated writers, and to which whole volumes,
nay libraries, have been devoted. Within the limited space of a single
chapter all that can be attempted is a brief glance at the influence on
design by which furniture and woodwork were affected. Perhaps the simplest
way of understanding the changes which occurred, first in Italy, and
subsequently in other countries, is to divide the chapter on this period
into a series of short notes arranged in the order in which Italian
influence would seem to have affected the designers and craftsmen of
several European nations.

Towards the end of