Château de Chenonceau
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The Château de Chenonceau, known as the Château des Dames, is a Loire château situated in Touraine, in the commune of Chenonceaux, within the département of Indre-et-Loire in the Centre-Val de Loire region.
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History
The Château de Chenonceau is one of the most celebrated and most visited châteaux in France, welcoming over a million visitors each year. Built upon the foundations of an ancient fortified mill, it occupies a spectacular position above the Cher, the river it straddles by means of its two-storey gallery, constructed under Catherine de Médicis. The history of the château is intimately bound to the women who shaped it. Katherine Briçonnet oversaw its construction from 1513, raising it upon the foundations of a medieval mill. Henri II presented it to his favourite, Diane de Poitiers, in 1547; she commissioned the bridge across the Cher and laid out the first formal French garden on its banks. Upon the king's death in 1559, Catherine de Médicis claimed the château for herself and ordered the construction of the celebrated two-storey gallery spanning the bridge (1576–1581), thus creating the iconic silhouette the world recognises today. The building is remarkable for its singular plan: a rectangular residential block set upon the old mill piers, to which the sixty-metre gallery, carried on five graceful arches, is joined. The interiors preserve an exceptional collection of furnishings spanning the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, alongside Flemish tapestries and Old Master paintings. The kitchens, ingeniously housed within the bridge piers at water level, are no less extraordinary.
Architecture
French Renaissance style. The main residential block rises from a square foundation, flanked by four corner towers, with a central staircase featuring straight flights of stairs — a remarkably innovative design for its era. A two-storey gallery, stretching sixty metres across five arches, spans the River Cher in breathtaking fashion. Two formal French-style gardens complete the composition: the jardin Diane de Poitiers and the jardin Catherine de Médicis.
Related Figures
Katherine BriçonnetDiane de PoitiersCatherine de MédicisPhilibert de l'OrmeJean BullantMadame Dupin
