ABSTRACT
A major stimulus to antiquarian taste in the art of the school of Fontainebleau, leading to the vogue for ruins in the mid-1540s, came from the work of Italian artists such as Raphael, Marcantonio Raimondi and Giulio Romano. Fontainebleau, Paris and the court did not have a monopoly of antiquarian taste, as witness the albums published by Du Cerceau in Orleans. But the major centre of antiquarian scholarship in France was Lyon, and there is some reflection of this in artistic output. The antiquarian interior is matched on the outside of the gallery by two sets of all'antica decorations, a series of marble medallions of emperors, of which eleven survive, and another series of ten terracotta herms of which five survive, one in the Louvre and four in a private collection. An important element in the attempt by the school of Fontainebleau to depict an accurate recreation of antiquity is the fascination with ancient ceremony, and notably with funerals.
