The Church of Saint-Eustache in the Early French Renaissance

Considered the most important French Renaissance church, Saint-Eustache in Paris has long remained an enigma. What new circumstances allowed its parishioners, long desirous of a new church, suddenly to begin buiding it 1532? Did Francis I play a role? Was the obscure Jean Delamarre possibly its architect? Could the ideas of the Italian theorist, Serlio, have affected his design? These and other key issues are resolved by the author in a sustained reading of all known evidence. The baffling forma…