BOURDICHON, JEAN. - Painter and miniaturist (b. c. 1457, d. 1521), he headed the “school of Tours” at the close of the fifteenth century and the beginning of the sixteenth, inheriting the legacy of Jean Fouquet. He worked for Lui-
gi XI, for Carlo VIII, for Luigi XII (whose favourite artist he became), and finally for Francesco I; he decorated with elegant motifs, richness of colour, and pleasing grace of form the Heures of Anna di Bretagna (bibl. Naz. of Paris, ms. lat. 9475: he received payment for it in 1508), developing Flemish and Italian models with delicate sweetness and displaying greater technical than inventive gifts. He was one of the foremost artists of the early French Renaissance; several codices in the bibl. Nat. of Paris are attributed to him (Heures d'Aragon, before 1494; Heures of Carlo VIII, before 1498; missal of Tours), as well as several portraits and a triptych of the Passion (1485) in S. Antonio at Loches.