Primatice à Chaalis

A sumptuous Italien prelate, the cardinal of Ferrara, wished to transform a chapel in the Ile-de-France region into a monument worthy of Florence, Rome or Venice. The scene took place towards 1540, under the reign of François Ier. Five years later, the miracle was accomplished and the cycle of frescoes by Primaticcio, with his vault with 18 saints, would definitely inscribe itself in the history of art. The Sainte-Marie chapel that hosted it, the property of the Institut de France, a curious ruin in the middle of a Cistercian abbey demolished during the Revolution, has just been restaured with the help of Generali and other patrons. It opened to the public since the autumn of 2006. The book reviews the conditions of the order – the cardinal of Ferrara, the son of Lucrecia Borgia, also went down in history for the villa d’Este in Tivoli – and the investigations that allowed for the cycle to finally be attributed to Primaticcio, in particular based on the drawings dedicated to the Louvre. The second part analyses the work, the techniques and the pigments used during the XVIth century and then details the operations of restauration. The third -mandatory -part, will consist in a visit to the site…

• Primatice à Chaalis, directed by Jean-Pierre Babelon, Nicolas Chaudun publishing house, 2006, ISBN : 2-35039-027-6, 45 €