L’architecture de la Renaissance à Nîmes et ses ambiguïtés

Abstract

Renaissance architecture at Nîmes and its ambiguities. The city of Nîmes still possesses a fair number of Renaissance buildings and later buildings which pursue the lessons of the Renaissance up to the 1660s. The numerous vestiges of classical Antiquity that still survive in Nîmes seem to have been a direct inspiration for artists working for a few wealthy patrons such as the Briçonnet bishops. The layout of most of the houses is determined by the town’s dense organisation of land parcels. The typology of these houses dates back in general to the Middle Ages, with only a few elements of detail being really Renaissance. The characteristics of the Renaissance style are to be seen essentially in the architectural décor, examined by the author of this article through a large number of examples.