Azay-le-Rideau castle
The Azay-le-Rideau castle is located in the municipality of Azay-le-Rideau in France . The two-wing Renaissance building is one of the most famous castles in the Loire region .
The historical roots of the moated castle lie in a high medieval castle of the knight Ridel d'Azay, which was razed at the beginning of the 15th century by the later French King Charles VII . Around a century later, Gilles Berthelot had the current palace built between 1518 and 1527 on the site of the old castle . Through the Raffin family he came to the Marquis Charles de Biencourt in 1791 . His descendants sold the property in 1906 to the French state, which has been the owner ever since.
The community
The village of Azay-le-Rideau is located in the French region of Center-Val de Loire and lies in the Indre-et-Loire department at an altitude of 45 meters above sea level on the Indre .
Probably from Gallo-Roman times, the place is first mentioned in the 10th century with Aziacus . Towards the end of the 11th or the beginning of the 12th century, a fortress was built there under the knight Ridel d'Azay, a feudal lord who enjoyed a dubious reputation for his cruelty. This seigneur was the namesake of the village, which was called Azium Ridelli (1118) since his reign .
In addition to tourism, especially because of the castle, which is considered an architectural pearl, agriculture dominates, including above all viticulture under the Touraine Azay le Rideau appellation .
The Treaty of Azay le Rideau
On July 4th, 1189, Anglo-French national history was written in Azay Castle. The Treaty of Azay ended the war between King Henry II of England and King Philippe-Auguste of France, who was allied with Henry's son Richard the Lionheart .
The devastatingly defeated Heinrich had to cede all his possessions in Auvergne , Berry and the cities of Issoudun, Graçay and Châteauroux to the French king. In addition, the English king pledged to marry his son to Philip II's sister, to pay high reparation costs to the French crown and to let Richard, to whom the barons had to swear the feudal oath, his conquests. In addition to the temporary end of the war between England and France, a joint crusade was negotiated in Azay and the start of Mittfasten 1190 was determined from Vézelay . King Henry II of England died two days after the negotiations.
The lords of the castle
In 1417 Duke Johann Ohnefurcht had a Burgundian garrison set up in the castle. A year later, some of the soldiers insulted the then Dauphin (later King Charles VII ), who was on his way from Chinon to Tours . The punishment followed immediately and Karl had the entire garrison crew (around 350 men) executed and the castle and the town razed. Until the 16th century, Azay was nicknamed le Brûlé ("the burnt Azay").
At the end of the 15th century, Martin Berthelot, head of the royal court of accounts under Charles VII and Louis XII. who have favourited Azay reign. His son Gilles Berthelot inherited in February 1515. As mayor of Tours and treasurer of King Francis I , he was allowed to restore the castle by royal resolution on April 4, 1515. Three years later, Berthelot and his wife Philippa Lesbahy began building what is now the castle. Located on an artificial island made of thousands of oak piles in the Indre, today's Renaissance palace was built between 1518 and 1527. His position as treasurer soon made Berthelot one of the richest men in France; the castle was intended to demonstrate wealth and power. But although Berthelot had been a true seigneur since his inheritance, he was watched with suspicion by the old aristocratic families because he was of bourgeois origin. The court did not miss an opportunity to hold against him his inferior origins.
In 1527 some nobles accused Franz I of embezzlement. The perpetually bankrupt king believed the allegations but avoided trying his treasurer without evidence. Nevertheless, the situation for Berthelot soon became acute: In the same year, the Chief Financial Officer Jacques de Beaune-Semblançay, a cousin of Mr. von Azay, was arrested, convicted and hanged for embezzlement. Berthelot recognized the danger and in 1528 fled with his wife to Cambrai , which was then part of the Holy Roman Empire. He died in Cambrai a few years later.
The king then gave Azay to his long-time companion in arms, Antoine Raffin. The descendants of Raffins were the new Seigneurs until they died out in 1791. Unlike many Loire castles, Azay was not ravaged or destroyed in the French Revolution . This was largely due to the owners, who always had a good relationship with the common people.
Two years after the storming of the Bastille , the Marquis Charles de Biencourt bought the castle in 1791. During the Franco-Prussian War , Azay was occupied by the Prussian Prince Friedrich Karl in 1871, without being affected. Charles Marie Christian de Biencourt sold the palace to the French state in 1905 for the sum of 200,000 francs .
The construction
The original fortress served as a protection for the passage of the river for centuries. With enthusiasm borne by his brilliant social upswing, Berthelot had two right-angled houses built on both sides of the old enclosing wall, the corner towers of which towered over the river. A monumental staircase dominates the rear of the courtyard. In the middle of the rear wing, after crossing a drawbridge that leads over the former moat, a passage to the garden opens up.
All new facades are symmetrically structured, while the verticals on the courtyard and outside are reinforced by the arrangement of the window front and the skylights above. The window openings on the various floors are framed by pilasters that interrupt the horizontally surrounding ledge strips and thus create a decorative grid. The upper end is a battlement in the form of a cornice, which served both decorative and functional purposes. The stairs in the main house have straight railings and a coffered ceiling. Its facade facing the courtyard is adorned with a multitude of three-dimensional decorations. The loggias are located above the double portal that forms a triumphal arch.
In the 19th century, the new owners tried to standardize the architectural style. The corner towers were rebuilt so that they border the courtyard in the Renaissance style. At the same time, they had some old, unattractive-looking buildings torn down, so that today the structure gives the impression of a “gem rising out of the river”.
Inside the castle, only the staircase and the kitchen have retained their original appearance. Similar to Chenonceau Castle, the staircase was not arranged as a spiral staircase, but in a straight line with reversing platforms in an architecturally new way for the 16th century. It is covered by coffers in connection with hanging canopies , with the coffers partly decorated with rosettes , partly with head profiles of French kings and queens from the 19th century.
The remaining rooms are furnished according to historical tastes with newly acquired, in some cases valuable, furniture, paintings and tapestries from the 16th and 17th centuries. The great hall used for balls and feasts shows a salamander in the style of a trompe-l'oeil above the fireplace . Otherwise, the room is lined with tapestries according to the taste of the 16th century, the oldest of which still shows the Gothic style of the Brussels carpet weavers around 1500. The Salon Biencourt, at the far end of the house, with its Renaissance-style fireplace and huge salamander, was restored in the 19th century based on the Fontainebleau model .
The estate
Until the 19th century, the river was dominated by the walls of the garden on the west side and the stables of the poultry farm located between the river and the village. At the end of the 17th century, two symmetrical farm buildings were built flanking a gate of honor. In front of it was a semicircular square, to which a long avenue of linden trees led.
From 1810, the Biencourt family had the river meadows drained and an English-style park laid out. From its concentrically arranged avenues, visitors should be able to admire the castle from all sides. The numerous arms of the Indre and the tree-lined banks made the park appear very original. Plant species from the most distant countries have made their home there: Atlas cedar , North American bald cypress , sequoia and the Asian ginkgo .
On the road to Chinon there is an old chapel that has become a romantic quiet altar. On the other side, the garden extends to the burial chapel, which was built by the Lansac family at the beginning of the 17th century and attached to the centuries-old church in the market town of Azay.
The "cannon path" between the castle and Indre was laid out in the 15th century and served to defend the small ford . The residents used it as a terrace and walkway at the foot of the walls. In 1950 it was decided to remove this now useless earthfill, as Gilles Berthelot had already planned. His plan was to create river overflows so that the palace structure was reflected in the smooth water surface of the Indre.
literature
- Wilfried Hansmann : The Loire Valley. Castles, churches and cities in the «Garden of France» . 2nd Edition. DuMont Reiseverlag, Ostfildern 2006, ISBN 3-7701-6614-0 , p. 149-152 .
- The castles on the Loire. Verlag Valoire-Estel, Blois 2006, ISBN 2-909575-73-X , page 102.
Web links
- Château d'Azay-le-Rideau - France's official website (english)
- Azay-le-Rideau Castle as a 3D model in SketchUp's 3D warehouse
Coordinates: 47 ° 15 ′ 32.4 ″ N , 0 ° 27 ′ 56.9 ″ E