This volume brings together papers given at a conference held in conjunction with the exhibition Tours 1500: Capitale des Arts (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Tours, 2012). Within scholarship on French Renaissance art, the notoriety of Tours has been linked primarily to its status as home to the painter/illuminators Jean Fouquet (ca. 1420–81) and Jean Clouet (1480–1541). Together, the exhibition, its catalogue, and these conference proceedings flesh out the history and significance of Tours as a center of art production in its own right, one whose prominence continued into the sixteenth century. Their focus on the year 1500 follows in the footsteps of the exhibition held the year before at the Grand Palais: France 1500: Entre Moyen Age et Renaissance (which traveled to the Art Institute of Chicago under the title Kings, Queens, and Courtiers: Art in Early Renaissance France), bringing to the fore a period in French art history that lies between and incorporates elements from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. By shifting attention away from Paris, they also join the growing body of scholarship on French provincial art centers during this period (recent studies have looked at Nantes, Lyons, and Moulins in this context) and enhance our understanding of the ways in which workshop practices and art production were anchored in specific urban environments, and how artisans working in a range of media interacted within these environments.

Contributors to the conference proceedings include organizers of the exhibition, catalogue authors, and other scholars based outside of French institutions. After an introductory essay by Marion Boudon-Machuel and Pascale Charron, the first section (“Artists and the City”) focuses on architecture and urbanism in Tours. David Rivaud provides a detailed overview of the topography of the city in 1500, including a map locating municipal and religious institutions, landmarks, hôtels particuliers, and artists’ houses. This essay is followed by studies of specific structures—the Hôtel de Ville (Jean-Luc Porhel) and the residences and gardens of the city's mayors (Xavier Pagazani)—and of materials, with Alain Salamagne's study of the ubiquitous brick used in Tours at the time. Jean-Marie Guillouët's article returns to Fouquet and his circle's connections to Tours, calling attention to the resemblance between the architectural decoration and construction techniques depicted in the well-known miniature of Solomon's temple and the roughly contemporary facade of the cathedral Saint-Gatien.

The second section (“Royal and Luxury Commissions”) includes essays on a range of media produced by artists in Tours. It begins with Pierre-Gilles Girault's identification of the patrons of artworks associated with the city, beginning with that of the Pietà of Nouans-les-Fontaines, attributed to Fouquet. The following essays in the section recognize the contributions of other artists and craftsmen with strong ties to Tours: the painters/illuminators Jean Bourdichon (Nicholas Herman), Jean Poyer (Mara Hofmann), the Master of Claude de France (Pierre-Gilles Girault), and Jean (Jehannet) Clouet—Alexandra Zvereva's essay provides new archival evidence for his career in Tours—as well as those involved with less studied forms, including gardens (Xavier Pagazani) and the sumptuary arts (Frédéric Tixier). Important contributions to our knowledge of other overlooked art forms are Caroline Vrand's article, which draws important links between the embroiderers and goldsmiths within the city, and Éric Reppel's documentary overview of weapon makers, which situates these artisans within the urban context of Tours through the meticulous use of documents. Nicholas Herman's essay on Bourdichon highlights the significance and artistry of heraldry, an art form that, when not entirely overlooked, is commonly utilized as a means of determining the patron for a work of art, or for dating it.

The last section is devoted to the circulation of designs and artists. It includes short essays, by Évelyne Thomas and Jean Guillaume, on the use of Italian ornamental motifs in the decoration of architecture in Tours. More-substantial essays in this section are those by Pascale Charron and Teresa d'Urso. Through detailed case studies of individual manuscripts, they demonstrate how illuminators associated with Tours brought together a range of stylistic motifs from Italian and local sources, which in turn circulated through workshops in the city.

These conference proceedings remind us of the complex relationship between art making and the cities in which it took place and represent a valuable resource and starting point for the study of “art and society in Tours at the start of the Renaissance.”