Presses Universitaires de France and Fremeaux & Associates offer this biography of Francis I, analyzed and explained by Pascal Brioist, professor of the universities, specialist of the intellectual and scientific history of the Renaissance. The evocation of Francis I awakens in us the school memories of portraits of Clouet or Titian, the Battle of Marignan or the stay of Leonardo da Vinci Clos Lucé. But beyond the agreed images, who exactly was this patron king? What were his political enterprises? Pascal Brioist details the biography of the great man, his education, his training, his practices of power and his inclination for the arts. A destiny that takes shape against a backdrop of national construction (the linguistic unification of France), European events (the wars of Italy, the beginnings of the Reformation, the rivalry with the Habsburgs) and world history (the New World race).