This book offers a full and comprehensive account of one of the most colorful and formative reigns in French history, that of Francis I (1515-47), and was published to coincide with the 500th anniversary of Francis I's birth in 1494. It is a completely revised edition of Professor Knecht's earlier study of the king, first published in 1982 and for many years the standard work on the subject. That edition is now superseded by this substantially larger work, in which much new written and illustrative material has been included. No other work on the subject is as up to date or as authoritative.