Maison du 16e siècle, actuellement musée
MonumentHidden Treasure
Maison du 16e siècle, actuellement musée, located in Fougères (Département 35), is a Renaissance château built in the 16th century. The monument is currently closed to visitors.
Key facts
- Type
- autre
- Period
- Renaissance (16th century)
- Location
- Fougères, Département 35, Bretagne
- Visit
- Closed to visitors
- GPS
- 48.3526, -1.2042
- Mérimée Reference
- PA00090569
Joyau de la Renaissance bretonne à Fougères, cette demeure du XVIe siècle aux colombages ouvragés et aux lucarnes sculptées abrite aujourd'hui un musée évoquant l'âme médiévale et Renaissance de la cité.
History
In the heart of Fougères, a fortress town whose castle is one of the most imposing in Europe, stands a 16th-century house that eloquently testifies to the bourgeois pomp of the Breton Renaissance. Listed as a historic monument since 1929, this house has been converted into a museum, offering a rare insight into the intimacy of the period's civil architecture, a far cry from the grand seigneurial residences that often monopolise visitors' attention. What sets this house apart from other buildings of the same period is the quality of its architectural vocabulary: the corbelling, finely carved timber framing and facade decorations reveal the hand of craftsmen who mastered both the late Gothic tradition and the early ornamental flourishes of the Renaissance. In a town dominated by granite, the presence of half-timbering gives the building an almost exceptional character. A visit to the museum that occupies it today will take you through the different levels of a bourgeois residence as it existed in the days of the tanning and cloth merchants who made Fougères prosper. The collections on display - furniture, decorative arts, paintings and memorabilia linked to the town's literary history - make for a richer experience of the interior. The urban setting enhances the experience: the house is set in a historic district where cobbled streets and old facades create a striking continuity in time. Just a stone's throw away, the church of Saint-Sulpice and the imposing silhouette of the medieval château form a first-rate heritage panorama. For the attentive visitor, this house is one of those places that reveal the city in a different way, through the intimate rather than the monumental.
Architecture
The house is a typical example of a timber-framed urban bourgeois residence, typical of 16th-century Breton civil architecture in towns where commerce had generated sufficient wealth to invest in quality construction. The street-facing facade, built over two or three corbelled levels, features half-timbered sections whose mortise and tenon joints bear witness to the high quality of the carpentry work. The infill between the posts, laid in cob or brick, contrasts chromatically with the dark colour of the old timbers. Dormers or windows with stone mullions, in the late Gothic tradition still alive in Brittany at the turn of the century, punctuate the levels and add light and rhythm to the composition. Some of the sculpted elements - lamp heads, brackets, stylised plant motifs - reveal the influence of ornamental engravings circulating in craft workshops at the time. Inside, the layout is organised around a spiral staircase or a straight staircase, leading to rooms with exposed joist ceilings whose main beams sometimes retain traces of their original polychromy. The roof, steeply pitched in accordance with Breton custom, is covered in Anjou or Brittany slate, a material that gradually replaced flat tiles in the region during the 16th century. The ensemble forms a coherent, well-preserved example of the wealthy housing of the Breton Renaissance, whose relative sobriety contrasts with the decorative exuberance seen in the Loire region during the same period.
Related Figures
Honoré de Balzac – romancier qui séjourna à Fougères et en fit le décor des Chouans (1829), contribuant au rayonnement culturel de la villeVictor Hugo – visita Fougères en 1836 et décrivit avec enthousiasme son architecture dans ses carnets de voyageJuliette de Lamour (dite La Pintade) – figure légendaire du monde des tisserands fougerais du XVIe siècle, archétype des marchands qui commanditèrent de telles demeuresEmmanuel de la Villéon – peintre impressionniste natif de Fougères (1858-1944), dont l'œuvre est intimement liée au patrimoine bâti de la villeLes artisans charpentiers et tailleurs de pierre bretons – compagnons anonymes qui transmirent les techniques de la construction à colombages du bassin ligérien vers la Haute-Bretagne
Tags
Nearby castles
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Maison du 16e siècle, actuellement musée located?
Maison du 16e siècle, actuellement musée is located in Fougères, Département 35 department, Bretagne region, France.
When was Maison du 16e siècle, actuellement musée built?
Maison du 16e siècle, actuellement musée dates back to a period built during the Renaissance (16th century).
Is Maison du 16e siècle, actuellement musée open to visitors?
Maison du 16e siècle, actuellement musée is currently closed to visitors.
