Francois I (jan 2, 1515 – mar 31, 1547)

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Son of Charles, Count of Angouleme (Charles was a grandson of Louis I, Duke of Orléans, a younger son of King Charles V of France, younger brother of Louis of Orleans). Louis XII had married his daughter Claude of France to Francois to preserve the union with Brittany. A prodigious patron of the arts, he initiated the French Renaissance by attracting many Italian artists to work on the Château de Chambord, including Leonardo da Vinci. He also continued the transformation of the Louvre into a royal palace; he demolished the massive central tower to create an open courtyard and appointed Pierre Lescot to design a new west wing of the palace. His art collection became the nucleus of the Louvre's holdings.
Francis' reign saw the rise of absolute monarchy in France, the spread of humanism and Protestantism, and the beginning of French exploration of the New World (Jacques Cartier). He was known as the Roi-Chevalier for his personal involvement in the wars against his great rival the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. Following the policy of his predecessors, Francis continued the Italian Wars. France was geographically encircled by the Habsburg monarchy, so Francis sought the support of Henry VIII of England at the Field of the Cloth of Gold. When this was unsuccessful, he formed a Franco-Ottoman alliance with the Muslim sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, a controversial move for a Christian king at the time. He was succeeded by his 28-year-old son Henri II.

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