Fontainebleau. Style of architectural decoration at the French Royal Château created by Italian (notably Rosso Fiorentino (1495–1540), Francesco Primaticcio (1504/5–70), Serlio, and Vignola), French, and Flemish artists for François I^er from 1528 to 1558. It was an eclectic mutation of High Renaissance design into a distinct form of Mannerism featuring lavish cartouches, caryatides, grotesques, scrolls, strapwork, and etiolated stucco figures. Fontainebleau influenced French design until the end of C16, but the style was widely disseminated through printed sources emanating from Antwerp, and influenced Flemish Mannerism and architecture in England, Germany, and The Netherlands.

Bibliography

Blunt (1982);
Chilvers, Osborne, & Frampton (eds.) (1988);
Shearman (1967)

FONTAINEBLEAU

FONTAINEBLEAU , town in the Seine-et-Marne department, approximately 37 mi. (about 60 km.) S. of Paris, France. The Jewish community in Fontainebleau dates from 1799. During the 19^th century, two important porcelain factories there were owned by Jews: Jacob Petit and Baruch Weil. At the time of the 1941 census, there were 58 Jews in Fontainebleau.

Holocaust and Postwar Periods

During the German occupation of World War ii, Fontainebleau's synagogue, dating from 1857, was looted and destroyed; its eight-branch candelabrum, made of blue Sèvres porcelain and donated by Napoleon iii to the Jewish community, was also smashed. After the war, a new Jewish community, composed mostly of North African Jews, settled there, numbering about 400 persons in 1969. The synagogue was rebuilt in 1965 and a new candelabrum was contributed by Allied (shape) officers stationed in the town.

bibliography:

Z. Szajkowski, Analytical Franco-Jewish Gazetteer (1966), 267.

[Bernhard Blumenkranz]

Fontainebleau Town in the Forest of Fontainebleau, Seine-et-Marne department, n France. It is famed for its 16th-century royal palace, commissioned by Francis I. Built on the site of a previous royal residence, it is a world heritage site and a masterpiece of French Renaissance architecture. Napoleon's imperial headquarters, it was also the location for the signing of his first abdication (1814). It is now a museum and the presidential summer residence. The town was headquarters of the military branch of NATO from 1945 to 1965. Pop. (1999) 44,421.