Francis I Knighted by Bayard at the Battle of Marignano

This painting, executed in 1817 by Louis Ducis, depicts the most celebrated episode of the Battle of Marignano: on the night of 13 to 14 September 1515, Francis I, exhausted after a first day of fierce fighting, is said to have been knighted on the battlefield by Pierre Terrail, Lord of Bayard, known as the "knight without fear and beyond reproach". Recorded by the chronicler Symphorien Champier, this scene, whose full historical accuracy is debated among historians, helped to durably shape the image of the "knight king" associated with Francis I from the very beginning of his reign. Painted in the early nineteenth century in a Neoclassical style tinged with troubadour sensibility, the work reflects its era's taste for the heroic and sentimental reconstruction of great scenes from national history, poised between assumed historical fidelity and romantic idealisation.