were as easily abandoned as they were initiated, and they have left
little either to history or to museums. Venice was, in the Sixteenth
Century, not only a buyer of tapestries for her own use, but one of
the largest markets for the sale of hangings to all Europe. Men and
monarchs from all Christendom went there to purchase. The same may be
said of Genoa, so that although these two cities had occasional
unimportant looms, their position was that of middleman--vendors of
the works of others. In addition to this they were repairers and had
ateliers for restoring, even in those days.

FOOTNOTE:

[13] E. Muentz, "La Tapisserie."

CHAPTER IX

FRANCE

WORKING UP TO GOBELINS FACTORY

In following the great sweep of tapestry production we arrive now in
France, there to stay until the Revolution. The early beginnings were
there, briefly rivalling Arras, but Arras, as we have seen, caught up
the industry with greater zeal and became the ever-famous leader of
the Fifteenth Century, ceding to Brussels in the Sixteenth Century,
whence the high point of perfection was carried to Paris and caused
the establishment of the Gobelins. The English development under James
I, we defer for a later considering.

Francis I stands, an over-dressed, ever ambitious figure, at the
beginning of things modern in French art. He still smacks of the
Middle Ages in many a custom, many a habit of thought; his men clank
in armour, in his chateaux lurk the suggestion of the fortress, and
his common people are sunk in a dark and hopeless oppression. Yet he
himself darts about Europe with a springing gait and an elegant
manner, the type of the strong aristocrat dispensing alike arts of war
and arts of the Renaissance.

Was it his visits, bellicose though they were, to Italy and Spain,
that turned his observant eye to the luxury of woven story and made
him desire that France should produce the same? The Sforza Castle at
Milan had walls enough of tapestry, the pageants of Leonardo da
Vinci, organised at royal command of the lovely Beatrice d'Este,
displayed the wealth of woven beauty over which Francis had time to
deliberate in those bad hours after the battle at Milan's noted
neighbour, Pavia.

[Illustration: THE FINDING OF MOSES

Gobelins, Seventeenth Century. Cartoon after Poussin. The Louvre
Museum]

[Illustration: TRIUMPH OF JUNO

Gobelins under Louis XIV.]

The attention of Francis was also turned much to S