every effort to reproduce its effect in translation has wholly failed. It is astonishing to think of the difference between the "Fables"—works of the very highest genius—and the "Tales;" such of these as we have looked at seem to have no merit whatever. The "Amours de Psyche" is an agreeable trifle, in which prose and verse are pleasingly intermingled.—J. A., D.
FONTAINE, Nicolas, an eminent member of the Port Royal, born at Paris in 1625, was admitted into that celebrated society when twenty years of age. When Arnauld and Nicole were obliged to flee from the persecutions of the jesuits, he accompanied them, and shared their misfortunes; and in 1664 Sacy and Fontaine were together imprisoned in the bastile. On his release four years afterwards, he settled at Melun, where he died in 1709. He was remarkable for simplicity, modesty, and disinterestedness. The work by which he is now principally known is "Memoirs of the Solitaries of the Port Royal."—T. J.
FONTAINE, Pierre François Leonard, for nearly half a century at the head of French architecture, was born at Pontoise, in the department of Seine-et-Oise, 20th September, 1762. Architecture was in his family the hereditary calling; and after a regular course of initiatory studies in his native place he removed to Paris, and entered at the Academy where David Leroy was then professor of architecture. Under him Fontaine made rapid progress. Having gained the second prize, he was sent as academic student to Rome to complete his professional studies; and as his exercise for the Academy presented a restoration of ancient Rome, for which he was awarded a special prize of three thousand francs. At Rome Fontaine made the acquaintance of a fellow-student, Charles Percier, with whom his fame and fortunes became indissolubly linked. The young men returned together to Paris, but the revolutionary troubles had commenced, and there was little prospect of professional employment; they therefore started off to try their fortunes in the British capital. In London they found employment more difficult to obtain, and living more expensive than in Paris. Whilst uncertain as to what course to pursue, Fontaine received a letter from his father, informing him of the decree of the assembly which confiscated the property of the families of emigrants who did not return by a certain day. At the same time Percier received the offer of the post of manager of the decorations of the opera, and proposed to Fontaine that they should share it between them. They returned to Paris, entered on their new duties, and succeeded not only in effecting great improvements in the scenic arrangements of the opera, but in obtaining occupation in their own profession. Bonaparte consulted them about the placing of the Laocoon, the Venus de' Medici, the Apollo Belvedere, and other sculptural spoils just brought from Italy; and finally desired them to prepare plans for the restoration of the palace of Malmaison. Their designs met the general's approval, and their fortune was made. As Bonaparte's star rose higher his views expanded; and Fontaine and Percier, who became his chief architects, were called upon to restore to more than all their ancient magnificence the existing palaces of France, to build new ones, and to make of Paris the noblest capital in Europe. The whole of this imperial programme could not then be carried out, but Fontaine and his colleague did more or less thoroughly restore, after Malmaison, the palaces of St. Cloud, Compiègne, Fontainbleau, Versailles, the Tuileries, and the Louvre. They also made designs for carrying out the project of the emperor to unite the Tuileries and the Louvre, and to extend the latter some seven hundred feet; and these works, as also the erection of the arch of the Carrousel, they were permitted to accomplish. On the restoration Fontaine was retained in his office as architect to the king, nor did the revolution of 1830 affect his position. Under Louis XVIII., Charles X., and Louis Philippe he continued, but on a much reduced scale, his works at the Louvre; completing the state staircase, and erecting a chapelle expiatoire, &c. For Louis Philippe he restored the palais royal. The revolution of February, 1848, left Fontaine unmolested. But he did not like his new masters, and as soon as he could do so without giving offence, he determined to retire. His resignation was accepted, but he was created president of the council of civil buildings, whose meetings he attended within a few days of his death, which occurred on the 10th of October, 1853. From the character of his occupation Fontaine had few opportunies of exhibiting original talent; and in all his works it is necessary in judging him to bear in mind that he was often compelled to bend his own views to the imperial will. His style was formed on Roman models, but was necessarily modified by the manner of the old French architects, on whose works he was employed. His influence on French architecture and ornamental art, which was almost unbounded, was due in a large measure to his publications as well as to his architectural labours. These publications, like his buildings, were prepared in conjunction with Percier. Their titles are—"Palais, maisons et autres édifices modernes dessinés à Rome," fol., 1798; 2nd edition, 1810; "Description des Fêtes et Cérémonies du Marriage de Napoleon, et de Marie-Louise," fol., 1810; "Recueil de décorations intérieures pour tout ce qui concerne l'ameublement," fol., 1812; 2nd edition, 1817. Fontaine was elected a member of the Institute in 1811; and the same year the emperor nominated him chevalier of the legion of honour. Other distinctions were conferred on him by succeeding sovereigns: by Louis XVIII. he was created officer of the order of St. Michel; Louis Philippe made him commander; and he was a member of nearly all the art societies of Europe.—J. T—e.
FONTANA, Carlo, a celebrated Italian architect, was born at Bruciato in the Comasco in 1634, and studied architecture under Bernini at Rome, where he executed many works of various kinds, as the Palazzo Bolognetti; the Theatre Tordinona; San Michele a Ripa for Innocent XII.; the portico of Santa Maria in Trastevere for Clement XI.; the library of the Minerva; the Visconti Villa at Frascati; and many others, all in a taste more corrupt than that of Bernini. Fontana prepared an account of the church of St. Peter at Rome for Innocent XI., which was published in 1694, with many illustrations. He made out that the cost of the building to that date was 46,852,000 scudi, or above £9,000,000 sterling—about four times the cost of the new palace at Westminster; that is, for the mere building, not accounting for alterations or the models, or for the pictures or monuments of the church. Fontana died in Rome in 1714.—(Milizia, Memorie degli architetti, &c., Parma, 1781, vol. ii.)—R. N. W.
FONTANA, Domenico, a celebrated Italian architect, was born in 1543 at Mill, on the lake of Como. At the age of twenty he went to Rome, where, under the direction of his elder brother, Giovanni, already established in that city as an architect, he drew and studied the works of Bramante, Vignola, and other masters of the renaissance period. His diligence and ability attracted the attention of Cardinal Montalto, who employed him in the erection of the capella Sistina in Santa Maria Maggiore, and a palace now known as the Villa Negroni; and when the cardinal was shortly after (1585) elected pope, under the title of Sixtus V., one of his earliest acts was to appoint Fontana chief-pontifical architect. In this capacity he was intrusted with the re-erection of one of the immense Egyptian obelisks, which had lain among the ruins of the city from the time of the barbarian devastation. The monolith was eighty-three feet two inches high, and eight feet ten inches square at the base, and weighed nearly four hundred tons. Fontana, by means of complex mechanical appliances, and several hundreds of labourers, accomplished his undertaking without a single mishap. Sixtus marked his sense of the achievement by granting him an annual pension of two thousand scudi, in addition to a present payment of five thousand crowns, and a gift of all the materials employed in the operation, besides creating him a knight of the order of the golden spur. Fontana himself, with not unnatural pride, published in a handsome folio volume a full account of the whole proceedings. He afterwards raised three other obelisks; including that in front of the church of St. John Lateran, which was much larger than the Vatican obelisk, being nearly one hundred and six feet long, and weighing about four hundred and forty tons. Among other restorations which Fontana was called upon by Sixtus to execute, were those of the Antonine and Trajan columns, and the fountain of Termini; and he removed from the Baths of Constantine to their present site the colossal groups which give their name to Monte Cavallo. He also cleared away some of the mean buildings which disfigured the ancient edifices, and opened some new streets. But his alterations were not always improvements: thus he ruthlessly destroyed some of Bramante's works to make way for his own; and it is remembered to his discredit by archæologists that he would have forever destroyed the impressiveness of the sublimest monument of ancient Rome, by erecting a cloth manufactory within the area of the Coliseum, had not the death of the pope put an end to the project. Of the new buildings erected by him for Sixtus, the most
