Theme Week Chateaux of the Loire Valley – Château de Chenonceau

Tuesday, 20 January 2015 - 06:45 am (CET/MEZ) Berlin | Author/Destination:
Category/Kategorie: General, Architecture, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks, UNESCO World Heritage
Reading Time:  5 minutes

Aerial view © Lieven Smits

Aerial view © Lieven Smits

The Château de Chenonceau is a manor house near the small village of Chenonceaux, in the Indre-et-Loire département of the Loire Valley in France. It was built on the site of an old mill on the River Cher, sometime before its first mention in writing in the 11th century. The current manor was designed by the French Renaissance architect Philibert Delorme.

The original second edition manor was torched in 1411 to punish owner Jean Marques for an act of sedition. He rebuilt a castle and fortified mill on the site in the 1430s. Subsequently, his indebted heir Pierre Marques sold the castle to Thomas Bohier, Chamberlain for King Charles VIII of France in 1513. Bohier destroyed the existing castle and built an entirely new residence between 1515 and 1521; the work was sometimes overseen by his wife Katherine Briçonnet, who delighted in hosting French nobility, including King Francis I on two occasions.

Diane de Poitiers was the unquestioned mistress of the castle, but ownership remained with the crown until 1555, when years of delicate legal maneuvers finally yielded possession to her. However, after King Henry II died in 1559, his strong-willed widow and regent Catherine de’ Medici had Diane expelled. Because the estate no longer belonged to the crown, she could not seize it outright, but forced Diane to exchange it for the Château Chaumont. Queen Catherine then made Chenonceau her own favorite residence, adding a new series of gardens.

As Regent of France, Catherine would spend a fortune on the château and on spectacular nighttime parties. In 1560, the first ever fireworks display seen in France took place during the celebrations marking the ascension to the throne of Catherine’s son Francis II. The grand gallery, which extended along the existing bridge to cross the entire river, was dedicated in 1577.

View from Catherine de Medici's garden © Tim Sackton Diane de Poitiers' garden © Welleschik Maze Garden, aerial view © Lieven Smits Gallery on the ground floor © McPig Farm buildings © Peter Dutton Chancellerie © Vadim Kurland © Jonathan Zornow seen from formal gardens © Ozeye © Ra-smit Caspian blue West facade over Cher river © 98octane Catherine de Medici's gardens © LonganimE Aerial view © Lieven Smits
<
>
View from Catherine de Medici's garden © Tim Sackton
On Catherine’s death in 1589 the château went to her daughter-in-law, Louise de Lorraine-Vaudémont, wife of King Henry III. At Chenonceau Louise was told of her husband’s assassination and she fell into a state of depression, spending the remainder of her days wandering aimlessly along the château’s vast corridors dressed in mourning clothes amidst somber black tapestries stitched with skulls and crossbones.

Another mistress took over in 1624, when Gabrielle d’Estrées, the favourite of King Henry IV, inhabited the castle. After that, it was owned by Louise’s heir César of Vendôme and his wife, Françoise of Lorraine, Duchess of Vendôme, and passed quietly down the Valois line of inheritance, alternately inhabited and abandoned for more than a hundred years.

Château de Chenonceau was bought by the Duke of Bourbon in 1720. Little by little, he sold off all of the castle’s contents. Many of the fine statues ended up at Versailles. The estate itself was finally sold to a squire named Claude Dupin.

In 1951, the Menier family entrusted the château’s restoration to Bernard Voisin, who brought the dilapidated structure and the gardens (ravaged in the Cher River flood in 1940) back to a reflection of its former glory. An architectural mixture of late Gothic and early Renaissance, Château de Chenonceau and its gardens are open to the public. Other than the Royal Palace of Versailles, Chenonceau is the most visited château in France. The château is classified as a Monument historique since 1840 by the French Ministry of Culture.

Here you can find the complete Overview of all Theme Weeks.

Read more on Château de Chenonceau and Wikipedia Château de Chenonceau. Learn more about the use of photos. To inform you about latest news most of the city, town or tourism websites offer a newsletter service and/or operate Facebook pages/Twitter accounts. In addition more and more destinations, tourist organisations and cultural institutions offer Apps for your Smart Phone or Tablet, to provide you with a mobile tourist guide (Smart Traveler App by U.S. Department of State - Weather report by weather.com - Global Passport Power Rank - Travel Risk Map - Democracy Index - GDP according to IMF, UN, and World Bank - Global Competitiveness Report - Corruption Perceptions Index - Press Freedom Index - World Justice Project - Rule of Law Index - UN Human Development Index - Global Peace Index - Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index). If you have a suggestion, critique, review or comment to this blog entry, we are looking forward to receive your e-mail at comment@wingsch.net. Please name the headline of the blog post to which your e-mail refers to in the subject line.




Recommended posts:

Share this post: (Please note data protection regulations before using buttons)

Jiuzhaigou Valley Scenic and Historic Interest Area in China

Jiuzhaigou Valley Scenic and Historic Interest Area in China

[caption id="attachment_225043" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Pearl Shoal Waterfall © Kosigrim[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Jiuzhaigou is a nature reserve and national park located in the north of Sichuan Province in southwestern Chi...

[ read more ]

Golf and resort town Hammamet in Tunisia

Golf and resort town Hammamet in Tunisia

[caption id="attachment_214628" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Old city of Hammamet © Mahdi Chaker/cc-by-sa-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Hammamet is a town in Tunisia. Thanks to its beaches, it is a popular destination for swimmin...

[ read more ]

Theme Week Tibet - Gyantse

Theme Week Tibet - Gyantse

[caption id="attachment_203570" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Old Gyantse and Palcho Monastery © Antoine Taveneaux/cc-by-sa-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Gyantse, officially Gyangzê Town, is a town located in Gyantse County, Shig...

[ read more ]

Portrait: John Locke, the father of Classical Liberalism

Portrait: John Locke, the father of Classical Liberalism

[caption id="attachment_24835" align="aligncenter" width="590"] John Locke signature[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]John Locke (1632 – 1704), widely known as the Father of Classical Liberalism, was an English philosopher and physician re...

[ read more ]

Theme Week Hungary

Theme Week Hungary

[caption id="attachment_222792" align="aligncenter" width="590"] View from Gellert Hill to the Danube in Budapest © flickr.com - Visions of Domino/cc-by-2.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Hungary is a country in Central Europe. Spanning 9...

[ read more ]

Piazza della Signoria in Florence

Piazza della Signoria in Florence

[caption id="attachment_243529" align="aligncenter" width="590"] © Zolli/cc-by-sa-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Piazza della Signoria is a w-shaped square in front of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, Italy. It was named after the Pal...

[ read more ]

Theme Week Istria - Labin

Theme Week Istria - Labin

[caption id="attachment_153462" align="aligncenter" width="590"] © Alessandro Vecchi/cc-by-sa-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Labin, with a town population of 7,000 and 12,000 in the greater municipality (which also includes the small ...

[ read more ]

Theme Week Moldova - Dubăsari

Theme Week Moldova - Dubăsari

[caption id="attachment_215135" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Liberal Arts College © flickr.com - Clay Gilliland/cc-by-sa-2.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Dubăsari is a city in Transnistria region of the Republic of Moldova, with a ...

[ read more ]

Shin-Yokohama Rāmen Museum in Yokohama

Shin-Yokohama Rāmen Museum in Yokohama

[caption id="attachment_248524" align="aligncenter" width="590"] © Douglas P Perkins/cc-by-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]The Shin-Yokohama Rāmen Museum (Shin-Yokohama Rāmen Hakubutsukan) contains ground-floor exhibits on the histor...

[ read more ]

BIQ, the world's first building with a bioreactor façade

BIQ, the world's first building with a bioreactor façade

[caption id="attachment_153736" align="aligncenter" width="590"] © iba-hamburg.de / Splitterwerk, Graz[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Natural, efficient and unique: the BIQ is setting new standards as the first building in the world to ha...

[ read more ]

Tiberias in Israel

Tiberias in Israel

[caption id="attachment_214268" align="aligncenter" width="590"] © Pacman[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Tiberias is an Israeli city on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. Established around 20 CE, it was named in honour of the secon...

[ read more ]

Theme Week Normandy - The seaside resort Étretat

Theme Week Normandy - The seaside resort Étretat

[caption id="attachment_152728" align="aligncenter" width="590"] © M. Pfeiffer/cc-by-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Étretat is a commune in the Seine-Maritime department in the Haute-Normandie region. It is a tourist and farming town...

[ read more ]

Return to TopReturn to Top