Renaissance Period (The)

That period in French history which began with the Italian wars in the reign of Charles VIII. and closed with the reign of Henri II. It was the intercourse with Italy, brought about by the Italian war (1494–1557), which “regenerated” the arts and sciences in France; but as everything was Italianised—the language, dress, architecture, poetry, prose, food, manners, etc.—it was a period of great false taste and national deformity.