Francis I of France
Francis I ruled France from 1515 to 1547, brought the Italian Renaissance north, and spent most of his reign fighting the Habsburgs. Born in 1494, he succeeded his cousin Louis XII, whose daughter he had married, and was twenty at his accession. He began with a victory. At Marignano in September 1515 he defeated the Swiss pikemen, previously considered unbeatable, and took Milan; he was knighted on the field by the Chevalier Bayard. He stood for election as Holy Roman Emperor in 1519 and lost to Charles V, whose inheritance then encircled France — Spain, the Netherlands, Austria and the Empire. Their rivalry defined European politics for a generation. Francis met Henry VIII at the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520 in a display of competitive magnificence that produced no alliance. At Pavia in February 1525 his army was destroyed and he was captured, writing to his mother that all was lost save honour. He spent a year imprisoned in Madrid, signed a treaty surrendering Burgundy, repudiated it on release, and left his two sons as hostages in his place for four years. He allied with the Ottoman sultan Suleiman against Charles, which scandalised Christian Europe. He was the outstanding royal patron of his age. He brought Leonardo da Vinci to Amboise in 1516, where he died three years later; he collected Raphael and Titian, began the Fontainebleau school, rebuilt the Louvre and built Chambord. He founded the Collège de France in 1530 and, by the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts in 1539, required legal proceedings in French rather than Latin. He persecuted Protestants after the Affair of the Placards in 1534, and died in 1547.
- Lived: 1494 CE – 1547 CE
- Nationality: French
- Roles: king, head_of_state, patron
