Château of Azay-le-Rideau

The château of Azay-le-Rideau

Coordinates: 47°15′36″N 0°28′0.9″E / 47.26°N 0.466917°E / 47.26; 0.466917 The Château of Azay-le-Rideau (pronounced: [azɛ lə ʁido]) was built from 1515 to 1527, one of the earliest French Renaissance châteaux. Built on an island in the Indre River at Azay-le-Rideau, its foundations rise straight out of the water.

History of the château

Gilles Berthelot, Treasurer-General of the Finances of France under King Francis I and mayor of Tours, began reconstructing Azay-le-Rideau's earlier medieval castle, that was part of his wife's inheritance. However, it was his wife, Philippe Lesbahy, who directed the course of the works, including its central internal staircase (escalier d'honneur) that is Azay's greatest most remarkable feature, inspired by the staircase at Châteaudun.

When Berthelot was suspected of collusion in embezzlement he was forced to flee from incomplete Azay-le-Rideau in 1528; he never saw the château again. Instead, the king confiscated the property and gave it as a reward to one of his high-ranking soldiers.

Over the centuries, it changed hands several times until the early part of the twentieth century, when it was purchased by the French government and restored. The interior was completely refurbished with a collection of Renaissance pieces. Today, the château is open to public visits, and is operated by the Centre des monuments nationaux.

Building style

The long proportions and the sculptural decorations are Italianate, in the new antique taste, but the bastion corners capped by pointed cones, the vertical stacks of grouped windows separated by emphatic horizontal string courses, and the high sloped slate roof are unmistakably French. The playful fortifications, which Berthelot had to justify to the king, gave an air of traditional nobility to Francis' newly-ennobled treasurer. The ill proportioned squat medieval donjon towers on the added wing and the added turret where the medieval wing was demolished were added in the early 19th century to give the illusion of a completed chateau.

The central staircase is the main feature a visitor meets with upon entering. It is embodied within the building, rather than rising helically, partly embedded in the wall and visible from outside in the French way, a feature that is familiar at the Château de Blois. It rises in a dog legged fashion turning 180 degrees around a dividing wall at each floor and intermediate landings that open onto loggias that face the courtyard.

The sculptural details at Azay are particularly remarkable. On the ground floor, 3 fluted pilasters on high bases lead up to the first loggia that displays the salamander and the ermine, emblems of Francis I and Claude de France. The large dormer windows of the open attic are partly in the high attic wall and partly in the enormous rafters of the steep roof. The king-posts appear as pillars resting on the beams that traverse the high attic walls.

The Romantic generation rediscovered the appeal of Azay-le-Rideau. Honoré de Balzac called it "a facetted diamond set in the Indre."^[1] Now Azay-le-Rideau is surrounded by a distinctly nineteenth-century parklike English landscape garden with many specimen trees, especially exotic conifers: Atlas cedar, and bald cypress and sequoias from the New World.

Notes

1. ^ "Un diamant taillé à facettes, serti par l'Indre."