Hôtel de Maleville dit Hôtel de Vienne (maison Renaissance)
MonumentHidden Treasure
A jewel of the Périgord Renaissance, the hôtel de Maleville stands with its three façades on the place de la Liberté in Sarlat, combining mullioned windows, ornate dormers and sculpted medallions of rare elegance.
History
In the heart of Sarlat-la-Canéda, a town that connoisseurs consider to be the living conservatory of the French Renaissance in Périgord, the Hôtel de Maleville stands out as one of the most accomplished private mansions of the 16th century in the South-West. Its façade of blonde Périgord stone, facing the Place de la Liberté, immediately reveals the ambitions of its patrons: here, architecture is above all a social manifesto. What sets the building apart from its already remarkable neighbours is the exceptional quality of its sculpted decoration. The finely worked mullioned windows, the triangular or arched pediment dormers alternating with almost musical precision, the bas-relief medallions depicting royal or mythological figures - every detail betrays the hand of stonemasons with a perfect mastery of the ornamental repertoire from Italy, adapted to local taste with a sobriety that is typical of the Périgord region. One of the hotel's names comes from the Vienne family, powerful merchants and royal officers who made this residence an economic and social centre of gravity in the 16th century. The second, de Maleville, recalls the great parliamentary families who inherited and carefully maintained it in the centuries that followed. This layered heritage can be seen in the architecture itself: each campaign of work has left a discreet signature without ever betraying the overall harmony. A visit to the Hôtel de Maleville is inseparable from a stroll through the old town of Sarlat, a medieval and Renaissance city ranked as one of the most beautiful in France. The building is part of an exceptional urban fabric, where each alleyway conceals a sculpted porch, a lantern tower or a hanging garden. For lovers of architecture, the comparison between the Hôtel de Maleville and its neighbours - the Hôtel de Vassal and the Maison de La Boétie - offers a veritable masterclass in the evolution of Renaissance forms in the provinces. Photographers and travellers sensitive to the light of Périgord will find the ochre stone of the façade an inexhaustible subject in the golden hours, when the late afternoon sun sets the sculpted reliefs ablaze and reveals the depth of the shadows cast on the mullions.
Architecture
The Hôtel de Maleville has a tripartite layout typical of the grand mansions of the Southern Renaissance: a main building flanked by wings forming a semi-open courtyard, a layout found in contemporary Périgord Noir mansions. The main facade, facing the Place de la Liberté, is punctuated by regular spans of mullioned windows whose stone transoms are topped with moulded drip mouldings. Attic dormers with alternating triangular and curved pediments - a characteristic feature of the Loire Renaissance vocabulary adopted in Périgord - pierce the steeply pitched roof covered in limestone slate. The sculpted ornamentation is the highlight of the building. Medallions in bas-relief, probably intended to commemorate royalty or illustrious figures in the fashion of the 16th century - Henri II and Catherine de Médicis are sometimes cited among the supposed effigies - adorn the overmantels and window cheeks. The stone stringcourses running between the floors emphasise the horizontal nature of the composition and betray an Italian influence, while the engaged colonnettes and leafy capitals of the door surrounds maintain a dialogue with the late Gothic tradition of the Périgord. Blonde Sarladais limestone, extracted from local quarries, was used almost exclusively in the construction, both for the masonry and the sculpted elements. The fine grain size of the stone meant that carving could be carried out with great precision, which the local stonemasons exploited to the full, producing reliefs of a quality that is rare in the region. Despite the centuries, the whole has retained a remarkable architectural legibility, with the golden patina of the stone adding a depth of colour to the elegance of the composition that is particularly enhanced by the low-angled light of the Périgord region.
Related Figures
Famille de Vienne — marchands enrichis et officiers royaux commanditaires présumés de la construction au XVIe siècleFamille de Maleville — noblesse de robe parlementaire, propriétaires aux XVIIe-XVIIIe siècles ayant transmis leur nom à l'édificeProsper Mérimée — inspecteur général des Monuments Historiques, dont l'action nationale permit la protection de l'édifice en 1889Henri II — roi de France dont l'effigie figure possiblement parmi les médaillons sculptés de la façadeCatherine de Médicis — dont le portrait en médaillon est traditionnellement associé à la décoration de la façadeÉtienne de La Boétie — humaniste et juriste sarladais (1530-1563), contemporain de la construction, symbole de l'effervescence intellectuelle de la Sarlat Renaissance
