Italian "forms" and local masonry in early French Renaissance: the stone coffered ceilings called "voûtes-plates", from the castle of Gaillon to the Bouton Chapel in Beaune

In 1505-1508, the first coffered wood ceilings, made by Riccardo da Carpi, appear in the Gaillon castle. In the same years a stone ceiling called “voûtes plates” is employed in the ambulatory of the lower chapel of the same castle. These “voûtes plates” are stone ceilings formally inspired from the wood coffered ceilings, but supported by few radial walls, which are opened with rampant arches. Shortly afterwards, the same kind of ceiling has been utilized in the chapels of the archbishop’s palace of Bayeux, commissioned by Ludovico di Canossa, and of some Norman churches: Saint-Pierre de Caen, la Ferté-Bernard, Saint-Jacques de Dieppe, Tilleul and Vieux-Saint-Etienne in Caen. After 1530 the same type of ceiling appears with a basic modification in the Bouton’s chapel in the collegiate church of Beaune, in Burgundy. The bearing structure of the stone coffered ceiling has been transferred beyond the extrados of the so-called “voûte-plate”. The system of tie beams and brick arches is completely hidden from the observer’s view. This makes the imitation of the wood coffered ceiling even more spectacular. The patron of this chapel is Jean Baptiste Bouton, the vicar of cardinal Georges d’Amboise in Rouen’s cathedral. Therefore it is really reasonable that the advanced system of the Bouton’s chapel in Beaune originates in the stone ceiling of the chapel of Gaillon, which was certainly personally known from Jean Baptiste Bouton.