Justifying the title of "house of the centuries, true residence of
the kings" that Napoleon had awarded it, the castle of Fontainebleau
offers the memory of more than 700 years of presence of the sovereigns in
France, since the enthronement of Louis VII in 1137 until at the fall of the
Second Empire in 1870. Among the kings who remained there, it is necessary to
make a place of choice to two of them: François I who, by appealing to Italian
artists - Rosso and Primatice in particular - to decorate the castle he had
rebuilt, introduced the art of the Renaissance in France and Henri IV then,
under the reign of new work are undertaken, which, by promoting the emergence
of the Second School of Fontainebleau, will give France its marks of artistic
nobility.