Meillant Castle

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Meillant Castle, 2009
Meillant Castle, 1503
Meillant Castle - exterior view

The castle Meillant is part of the French community Meillant in the department of Cher in the region Center-Val de Loire . It is a castle of the Bourbons , the south of Bourges on small river Cher is. With the rise of the House of Amboise, the building, which had already existed for 100 years at the time, moved up into the circle of Loire castles in the middle of the 15th century .

In 1453, Pierre d'Amboise, Seigneur de Chaumont , came into the possession of Meillant by marriage. His son Charles I wanted to modernize the castle built by Etienne de Sancerre in the early 14th century . Before he died in 1481, he had one of the buildings that stood along a polygonal curtain wall with flanking round towers that completely enclosed the courtyard .

The strict simplicity of this first building is typical of the time of Louis XI. The second building, which was modernized by his son around 30 years later before 1510, shows an Italian-influenced late Gothic style. The inner facade is one of the luxurious manifestations of the Renaissance in the Berry province , although it was mainly focused on the preference for certain ornaments during the time of the first Italian campaigns . This architecture is particularly evident in the flamboyant- style stair tower added around 1505 , the lion tower (French: tour du lion ) built by Fra Giovanni Giocondo .

In the 18th century the castle belonged to the Duke of Charost from the Béthune family . He enjoyed great popularity which helped him to be released after his arrest during the French Revolution and to save the castle from destruction. Meillant Castle later became the property of the Rochechouart de Mortemart family , who still own it today, and was extensively restored in 1842 by the architect Louis Normand. The interior furnishings include tapestries and Flemish furniture.

Since March 1926, the castle as is Monument historique under monument protection .

literature

  • Auvergne - Berry . The green travel guide. Travel House Media, Munich, ISBN 978-3-8342-8982-7 , p. 214.
  • Marcus Binney: Chateau de Meillant, Berry . In: Country life . No. 170, July 23, 1981, ISSN  0045-8856 , pp. 170-173, 240-243.
  • M. Dumolin: Le chateau de Meillant . In: Congrès archéologique de France . No. 94, 1932, pp. 154-174.
  • Susanne Girndt (Red.): Castles of the Loire . Bassermann, Niedernhausen 1996, ISBN 3-8094-0290-7 , pp. 28-29.
  • Jean-Marie Pérouse de Montclos, Robert Polidori : Castles in the Loire Valley . Könemann, Cologne 1997, ISBN 3-89508-597-9 , p. 228 .

Web links

Commons : Château de Meillant  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Schloss Meillant in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French), accessed on July 7, 2009.

Coordinates: 46 ° 47 ′ 0 "  N , 2 ° 30 ′ 14.5"  E