# North front elevation [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [SERLIO, Sebastiano]() - Date: 1501-1550 - Technique: Engraving ## Commentary Construction of the existing Château d'Ancy-le-Franc began in 1544, at the request of Antoine III de Clermont, brother-in-law of Diane de Poitiers. The design of the building is traditionally attributed to the Italian architect Sebastiano Serlio, who had been invited to France by King Francis I. Serlio's original plan, preserved in the manuscript at the Avery Library of the Columbia University \(the Columbia manuscript\), shows an entire Italianate building with rusticated ground floor and four low square towers at the corners, in the manner of early Renaissance villas on the Venetian mainland. ## Related artworks - [Aerial view]() - [Exterior view]() - [Exterior view]() - [Façade of a Venetian palazzo]() - [General view]() - [Interior view]() - [Interior view]() - [Plan of a Venetian palazzo]() - [Section of the château]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()