Entrance

The important architect of the middle of the sixteenth century in Toulouse is Nicolas Bachelier, who built some of the outstanding private houses of the town. He began as a sculptor, and his works in architecture bear the marks of this early training. His door at the H�tel de Bagis, with its ingeniously arranged supporting herms, is conceived essentially as a work of sculpture. The entrance to the H�tel d’Ass�zat is more the work of an architect, but is still picturesque in its use of rustication and surface decoration. The application of Italian motives in it is quite personal, and the design has little in common with what was being produced farther north.