King René d'Anjou and His Seven Queens. Staley Edgcumbe
Thence forward he decorated the walls and stain-glazed the windows of his various castles and palaces—Bar-le-Duc, Nancy, Angers, Saumur, Reculée, Tarascon, Marseilles, and Aix. Every bastide and maison inhabited by his Queens and himself was also similarly adorned, and many coloured church windows were due to his gentle art. Alas that so few vestiges of these admirable labours remain! French mobs are proverbial for iconoclastic propensities, and no land has suffered more than France from the suicidal mania of her sans-culottes.
To fresco-painting, portraits, and glass-staining, the Royal artist added miniatures and penmanship. His “style” was formed and developed successively under such personal tuition as that of the brothers Van Eyck and Maistre Jehannot le Flament. Later on Jean Focquet of Tours and Nicholas Froment influenced him. A letter is extant of King René, addressed in 1448 to Jan Van Eyck, in which he asks for two good painters to be sent to Barrois.
Visits to Rome, Florence, Naples, Milan, and other art cities of Italy, very greatly enlarged René’s métier. Intercourse with Fra Angelico da Fiesole, Fra Filippo Lippi, Paolo Ucello, the Della Robbia, and many other Tuscan artists, quickened his natural talent and guided his eye and hand. Leon Battista Alberti, Francesco Brunellesco, and Cennino Cennini, and their works in materia and literature, produced great results in the receptive faculties of the King-artist. At Naples he came in contact with Colantonio del Fiore, Antonio Solario—Il Zingaro—and Angiolo Franco, and gathered up what they taught.
Besides these immense advantages as a personal friend of great ruling Italian families, the Medici, the Pazzi, the Tornabuoni, the Visconti, the Sforza, the Orsini, and many others, René had opportunities enjoyed by very few. His own amiable individuality and his ample knowledge were the highest credentials in the pursuit of art and craft. René witnessed the consecration of the Duomo of Florence and the completion of the guild shrine of Or San Michele, and he was enrolled as an honorary member thereof. At Florence also he was thrown in contact with world famous scrivani—writers and illustrators of manuscript. The subsequent excellence of French miniaturists was largely due to King René’s example and encouragement.
René’s more considerable paintings, which have been preserved, are as follows:
1. The Burning Bush, part of an altar triptych, at the Cathedral of Aix. Projected and begun by the King, it was finished by Nicholas Froment, 1475–76, and for it the artist received no more than 70 gulden (see illustration).
2. Souls in Purgatory, an altar-piece (7 × 5½), originally in hospital chapel at the Chartreuse of Villeneuve les Avignon. It is really a “Judgment,” with Christ and saints above the clouds, and twenty-four little figures in and out torment. The building was destroyed in 1793.
3. La Divina Commedia, an altar-piece (8 × 6), in the church of the Célestins at Avignon in distemper. It was due to René’s vision of his mistress, Dame Chapelle, upon the day of her death, which shocked him so greatly that he painted this composition to remove the painful impression he thus experienced.
4. Saint Madeleine preaching, now in the Hôtel Cluny. It was a whimsical conceit connecting the story of the sisters of Lazarus with René and his Queen Jehanne. It is conventional in treatment but finished most beautifully (see illustration).
King René’s artistic speciality was miniatures. He illuminated many manuscripts.
1. Preces Præ. The Latin “Hours” of King René, a manuscript of 150 sheets of fine vellum, written very beautifully in small lettering, with superb capitals in gold and colours. The borders and miniatures are exquisitely painted. It is bound in red morocco. This precious volume was dedicated to Queen Isabelle, whose portrait is painted as a frontispiece (see illustration). It was one of the King’s wedding presents to his second Queen, Jehanne de Laval. The value of the Preces Præ is enhanced by numerous marginal notes of dates and details written by René’s hand. At the end by way of Finis is a clock-face, upon which is painted “R et J,” under the words “En Un,” all in a circle of gold. This treasure is now in the National Library in Paris, and there is a copy almost exactly in duplicate in the Imperial Library in Vienna. The date is 1454.
2. Pas d’Armes de la Bergère. A poem of Louis de Beauvau, Seigneur de la Roche et Champigny, Grand Seneschal of Angers, Ambassador to Pope Pius II., and a famous Champion in the “Lists.” It is a pastoral allegory, and extols the courage and chivalry of many famous knights—Ferri de Vaudémont, Philippe Lenoncourt, Tanneguy de Chastel, Jean de Cossa, Guy de Laval, and others. It was put forth in 1448 after the celebrated tournaments in Anjou, Lorraine, and Provence. King René illuminated it with portraits and miniature paintings at Tarascon, where he and Jehanne de Laval spent so many happy days ruralizing in 1457.
At Aix, in the Library, is a manuscript Livres des Heures, dated 1458; at Avignon, in the Church of the Cordeliers, is another of the following year; at Poitiers, in the Library, is a “Psalter”; in the Musée de l’Arsenal of Paris, a Breviary (see illustration)—all exquisitely written and illuminated by the master-hand of the King.
II. Literary Works of King René.
The earlier works of the King are sufficiently remarkable as exhibiting his serenity in adversity and his uprightness as a legislator; his later poems are notable in revealing his chivalry as a knight-adventurer, and his tenderness as a dainty troubadour. René, whether as Sovereign, knight, or lover, led the taste of his age. His personality attracted everybody, and his character elevated all in fruitful emulation. His utterances and his writings, in spite of the freedom of manners and the piquancy of speech, were conspicuous for chastity of thought and delicacy of expression. Not a single dubious word or doubtful reference disfigures his pages: a man and King was he without reproach.
The works which René composed as well as decorated place him in the forefront of poets. The principal are as follows:
1. Regnault et Jehanneton, or Les Amours du Bergier et de la Bergeronne. It is an idyllic pastoral. The manuscript occupies seventy sheets of fine vellum, written in black and crimson, very carefully and finely. The miniatures and capitals are very numerous, and display the greatest skill and taste in design and finish. This manuscript was written at Tarascon, after René and Jehanne’s romantic sojourn at his bastide on the Durance.
2. Mortifiement de Vaine Plaisance, or Tracte entre l’Ame devote et le Cœur. In manuscript, written very carefully in black and scarlet, with many exquisitely-painted miniatures and capital letters. This “Morality” covers fifty-five sheets of the finest vellum. The Royal writer was assisted by Jehan Coppre, a priest of Varronsgues. The frontispiece by René represents the King, fully robed, seated in his studio labouring with his pen and brush (see illustration).
3. La Conquête de la Doulce Mercy, or La Conquête par le Cuer d’Amour Espris. This is a manuscript with 138 sheets of very smooth vellum written in red, black, and purple, with sixty-two miniatures and many capitals superbly painted. It is bound in red morocco, and is in the National Library in Paris. It bears the date 1457. René both wrote and illuminated it shortly before the death of Queen Isabelle.
4. L’Abuzé en Court. A manuscript covering fifty-seven sheets of very fine vellum. Where and how King René got his “skins” we do not know, but they are the finest and most perfect of any French or Italian manuscripts of the period. The colour and grain of the skin are very fine; only an artist-writer could have chosen such splendid folios. This manuscript is bound in walnut-wood boards covered with crimson velvet and embroidered. It contains fifty lovely miniatures and has rich capitals. René has in this case recorded the exact date of completion—July 12, 1473.
5. Very superb—perhaps King René’s chef d’œuvre—is Le Tracte des Tournois, a full description of his splendid tournament at Saumur, with the richest possible