Madrid Castle
The Château de Madrid was a castle of the Renaissance in France. It was located at today's Porte de Madrid in the area of today's municipality of Neuilly-sur-Seine on the edge of the Bois de Boulogne . It was built as a royal residence in the 16th century, deteriorated in the later 17th and 18th centuries, and was demolished during the French Revolution .
history
Construction of the palace began in 1527 by order of King Francis I , who was captured in the Battle of Pavia in 1525 and who had spent a few months in Madrid . The construction work was initially under the direction of the Florentine architect Girolamo Della Robbia , then several French architects took over the construction management, including Philibert de l'Orme . The construction was completed in 1552 under Heinrich II.
The castle is particularly famous for its richly decorated facade , which Della Robbia almost completely furnished with bas-reliefs made of terracotta , and for the splendid interior decoration. For this reason the castle was also called Château de Faïence . Architecturally, the building combined influences of the Italian Renaissance, with the H-shaped floor plan of the central part and the rich exterior decoration, and French traditions in the form of the corner towers on both pavilions and the arrangement of the interiors, which were modeled on the castles of Chenonceau and Chambord .
In the further course of the 16th century, just before Bartholomew's Night , the Madrid Palace was built by Charles IX. and Catherine de Medici , then at the beginning of the 17th century by Margaret of Valois . Under Louis XIV , who never visited the castle himself, the building served as the residence of the State Secretary and later keeper of the seal, Joseph Fleuriau d'Armenonville. In 1666 a manufacture for silk stockings was set up here, but due to a lack of qualified workers and the wars of Louis XIV, it only lasted for a short time.
During the Régence of Louis XV. Princess Marie Louise Élisabeth d'Orléans lived in the castle, which, however, was abandoned by the Bourbon family after her death in 1719 and fell into disrepair. In 1787, the Madrid Castle together with the La Muette Castle - also located on the edge of the Bois de Boulogne - as well as the Vincennes Castle and the Blois Castle on the orders of Louis XVI. released for sale. Before the outbreak of the revolution, Madrid Castle was in ruins and was bought up with assignats by M. Leroy, the head of a demolition company, in 1792 and then demolished. The only remains of the castle today are a stone capital and some fragments of faience, which are exhibited in the Ceramics Museum in Sèvres and in the Castle of Écouen .
Web links
- Madrid Castle, private page (French)
Coordinates: 48 ° 52 ′ 27 ″ N , 2 ° 15 ′ 18 ″ E