Francis' reign saw important cultural changes with the growth of central power in France, the spread of humanism and Protestantism, and the beginning of French exploration of the New World.

For his role in the development and promotion of the French language, Francis became known as le Père et Restaurateur des Lettres (the 'Father and Restorer of Letters').

[2] When this was unsuccessful, he formed a Franco-Ottoman alliance with the Muslim sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, a controversial move for a Christian king at the time.

Therefore, the four-year-old Francis (who was already Count of Angoulême after the death of his own father two years earlier) became the heir presumptive to the throne of France in 1498 and was vested with the title of Duke of Valois.

[5] In 1505, Louis XII, having fallen ill, ordered his daughter Claude and Francis to be married immediately, but only through an assembly of nobles were the two engaged.

His academic education had been in arithmetic, geography, grammar, history, reading, spelling, and writing and he became proficient in Hebrew, Italian, Latin and Spanish.

Francis came to learn chivalry, dancing, and music, and he loved archery, falconry, horseback riding, hunting, jousting, real tennis and wrestling.

At the time of his accession, the royal palaces of France were ornamented with only a scattering of great paintings, and not a single sculpture, not ancient nor modern.

Francis patronized many great artists of his time, including Andrea del Sarto and Leonardo da Vinci; the latter of whom was persuaded to make France his home during his last years.

When he comes up in a conversation among characters in Baldassare Castiglione's Book of the Courtier, it is as the great hope to bring culture to the war-obsessed French nation.

Francis' older sister, Marguerite, Queen of Navarre, was an accomplished writer who produced the classic collection of short stories known as the Heptaméron.

Francis corresponded with the abbess and philosopher Claude de Bectoz, of whose letters he was so fond that he would carry them around and show them to the ladies of his court.

Early in his reign, he began construction of the magnificent Château de Chambord, inspired by the architectural styles of the Italian Renaissance, and perhaps even designed by Leonardo da Vinci.

He merely continued the wars that he succeeded from his predecessors and that his heir and successor on the throne, Henry II of France, would inherit after Francis' death.

In addition to the Holy Roman Empire, Charles personally ruled Spain, Austria, and a number of smaller possessions neighbouring France.

Francis had tried and failed to become Holy Roman Emperor at the Imperial election of 1519, primarily due to his adversary Charles having threatened the electors with violence.

Francis I attempted to arrange an alliance with Henry VIII at the famous meeting at the Field of Cloth of Gold on 7 June 1520, but despite a lavish fortnight of diplomacy they failed to reach an agreement.

[16] Francis and Henry VIII both shared the dreams of power and chivalric glory; however their relationship featured intense personal and dynastic rivalry.

By the mid-1520s, Pope Clement VII wished to liberate Italy from foreign domination, especially that of Charles, so he allied with Venice to form the League of Cognac.

On 24 July 1534, Francis, inspired by the Spanish tercios and the Roman legions, issued an edict to form seven infantry Légions of 6,000 troops each, of which 12,000 of the 42,000 were to be arquebusiers, testifying to the growing importance of gunpowder.

The force was a national standing army, where any soldier could be promoted on the basis of vacancies, was paid wages by grade and granted exemptions from the taille and other taxes up to 20 sous, a heavy burden on the state budget.

Francis also obtained the help of the Ottoman Empire and after the death of Francesco II Sforza, ruler of Milan, renewed the contest in Italy in the Italian War of 1536–1538.

[25] Francis had been much aggrieved at the papal bull Aeterni regis: in June 1481 Portuguese rule over Africa and the Indies was confirmed by Pope Sixtus IV.

Thirteen years later, on 7 June 1494, Portugal and the Crown of Castille signed the Treaty of Tordesillas under which the newly discovered lands would be divided between the two signatories.

The construction of a new port was urgently needed in order to replace the ancient harbours of Honfleur and Harfleur, whose utility had decreased due to silting.

On this expedition, Verrazzano visited the present site of New York City, naming it New Angoulême, and claimed Newfoundland for the French crown.

[28] In 1534, Francis sent Jacques Cartier to explore the St. Lawrence River in Quebec to find "certain islands and lands where it is said there must be great quantities of gold and other riches".

[35] It did, however, cause quite a scandal in the Christian world[36] and was designated "the impious alliance", or "the sacrilegious union of the [French] Lily and the [Ottoman] Crescent."

In 1526, she was replaced by the blonde-haired, cultured Anne de Pisseleu d'Heilly, Duchess of Étampes, who, with the death of Queen Claude two years earlier, wielded far more political power at court than her predecessor had done.

[59] A portrait dated to 1532–33 by Joos van Cleve may have been commissioned either for the occasion of a meeting with Henry VIII of England or Francis' second marriage.