Author Description

The Hotel de Cluny was formerly the Parisian residence of the Abbots of Cluny. It was built during the second half of the fifteenth century into the remaining walls of the baths of the Roman city of Lutetia on a site on the left bank, near the Sorbonne, which had been acquired by the Order of Cluny in 1334. This monograph, the first on the Hotel de Cluny since 1888, explores its structure, its place in the life of medieval and renaissance Paris, its origins in the typology of Cluniac abbots' and priors' dwellings, and the interaction between innovation and tradition in French fifteenth century domestic architecture. This book also documents the transformation of the Hotel de Cluny into the Musee National du Moyen Age between 1833 to 1844 by its founders Albert Lenoir and Alexandre Du Sommerard as well as its subsequent restoration by the Commission des Monuments Historiques. Myra Nan Rosenfeld (PhD, Harvard University) was Senior Research Curator at the Canadian Centre for Architecture (Montreal). She has published books and articles on Sebastiano Serlio, Piranesi, French renaissance architecture and French eighteenth century painting.