The Vision of Rome in Late Renaissance France

Book excerpt: "The French vision of Rome was initially determined by travel journals, guide books and a rapidly developing trade in antiquities. Against this background, Margaret McGowan examines work by writers such as Du Bellay, Grevin, Montaigne and Garnier, and by architects and artists such as Philibert de L'Orme and Jean Cousin, showing how they drew upon classical ruins and reconstructions not only to re-enact past meanings and achievements but also, more dynamically, to interpret the present. She explains how Renaissance Rome, enhanced by the presence of so many signs of ancient grandeur, provided a fertile source of artistic creativity. Study of the fragments of the past tempted writers to an imaginative reconstruction of whole forms, while the new structures they created in France revealed the artistic potency of the incomplete and the fragmentary.