The Renaissance

rival of an unmarried girl as the nominal
head of Brittany set off a diplomatic crisis
between Brittany and France. To head off
the claims of the French, a marriage was
arranged between the twelve-year-old
Anne and Maximilian, the Habsburg em-
peror of the Holy Roman Empire, long an
enemy of France. The wedding took place
by proxy in December 1490, without the
bride and groom actually meeting to take
part in a ceremony; at the insistence of
France the marriage was soon dissolved by
a decree from the pope. The French king
Charles VIII then began a siege of Anne’s
capital at Rennes, which ended with the
city starving and capitulating and Anne
agreeing to marry Charles. The wedding
took place at the chateau of Langeais, in
the face of angry protests from the Hab-
sburg dynasty, which claimed the marriage
to be illegal.

As a result of her marriage to Charles,
Anne was crowned as the queen of France
in February 1492. She gave birth to four
children, all of whom died before reaching
adulthood. When Charles died in 1498
Anne was married to his successor, Louis
XII, but also returned to Brittany, where
she allowed a parliament of representatives
to meet. Although Louis claimed the right
to govern her duchy, she defied French
claims on Brittany until her death in 1514.
She had two surviving daughters by
Louis—Claude and Renee. By her will the
duchy passed to her younger daughter
Renee; however, Louis forced the issue of
Breton independence by decreeing Claude
as the rightful heir to Anne’s title. By the
marriage of Claude to Francis of
Angouleme, who became King Francis I in
1515, Brittany passed on the control of
France.

SEEALSO: Charles VIII; Francis I; Maximil-
ian I

architecture ........................................

The architecture of the Renaissance drew

on forms and techniques recovered from

ancient Greece and Rome. This classical

architecture came to light with the redis-

covery of the Roman architect Vitruvius,

whose book On Architecturerevealed

building techniques that had been lost in

the Middle Ages. Vitruvius’s work was

translated into many languages and ap-

peared in several new editions;On Archi-

tectureinspired new treatises by Renais-

sance writers striving to explain and

inspire the use of classical proportions and

harmony. These authors, including Leon

Battista Alberti and Andrea Palladio, as-

pired to teach universal ideals, grounded

in mathematics, classical philosophy, sci-

ence, geometry and the art of perspective.

They were translated and spread quickly

An aerial view of Brunelleschi’s “Il Duomo,”

the dome of the Cathedral of Santa Maria

Del Fiore in Florence. THEBRIDGEMANART

LIBRARY/GETTYIMAGES.

architecture