Tournay Castle

Tournay Castle
	Tournay Castle
Alternative name (s):	Château de Tournay ; Château de Voltaire
Creation time :	1601-1603
Conservation status:	Receive
Place:	Pregny-Chambésy
Geographical location	46 ° 14 '13 " N , 6 ° 8' 17" E Coordinates: 46 ° 14 '13 " N , 6 ° 8' 17" E ; CH1903: four hundred and ninety-nine thousand six hundred seventy-nine / 121445
Height:	447 m above sea level M.

The Tournay Castle (French Château de Tournay ) is a castle in the Pregny district of the Pregny-Chambésy municipality , in the canton of Geneva in Switzerland on the right bank of Lake Geneva .

history

From the 12th to the 18th century

There are no written records about the exact origins of the castle. In the 10th century, the Gex landscape , in which today's Tournay Castle is located, belonged to the comitatus equestris of an unspecified county that had developed out of the hinterland of the Roman municipality of Nyon . After the establishment of several other estates, so-called feudal manors, in the 12th and 13th centuries, the Counts of Geneva (Genevois) gradually lost control of this area. After taking over the area, the new masters managed to obtain a more or less autonomous position. It was ultimately this process to which the small rule of Tournay owes its origin. It is believed that this rule included the villages of Pregny and Chambésy in the 13th century and was under a loose feudal rule of the Lords of Gex. During the late Middle Ages , this fiefdom was renewed with the respective new owners and since 1353 it was under the sovereignty of Savoy with the rule of Gex . From today's perspective, it cannot be answered whether this ruling center had a castle or a castle complex at its disposal at the beginning, or whether the exercise of rulership rights, which is more likely to be assumed, happened from a manor.

After Bern had conquered the Vaud in 1536 at the time of the Italian Wars , they also took sovereignty over the rule of Gex. Although the rule was returned to the Duke of Savoy Emanuel Philibert in 1567 , the castle has since served as a strategic base for military actions against Geneva. Jean de Brosses from the de Brosses family, who owned the estate and castle from 1573 to 1778, sympathized with the Geneva Calvinists around 1590, although Tournay was a Savoy fief. In order to protect his castle from the participating warring factions, he had the curtain walls removed and the existing moats filled so that the complex could no longer be a Savoy base. However, these measures did not offer any protection, as Geneva troops burned down the castle during one of their war marches. After the hostilities that had begun in 1589 were ended by the Peace of Saint-Julien on July 21, 1603, the de Brosses family began to rebuild the castle, but refrained from repairing the fortified structures and so Tournay acquired the character of an elegant mansion.

From the 18th century until today

Tournay Castle 1943

In the 18th century the small lordship of Tournay was raised from the House of Savoy to a county and in 1758 Voltaire rented a lifelong apartment there. When he began to perform theatrical productions in addition to his work there, he incurred the wrath of the Calvnists from Geneva. He then settled in Ferney , only a few kilometers away , where he had greater freedom of movement. After Voltaire's death in 1778, René-Augustin de Brosses took over the property again. During the Geneva Revolution of 1782 (French: La révolution genevoise de 1782 ) Tournay Castle became the seat of the so-called Negative Committee and during the French Revolution the Tournay rule was dissolved. In 1794, the property, used as a boarding house for sick and convalescent girls aged 6 to 14, was divided up and sold to Pierre-Jean Pannisod, a former farmer of the de Brosses family. From 1851 to 1896, the Panissod family left Tournay Castle and gave it to the International Committee for the Support of Wounded in War. In 1915, Alfred Baur, a dealer and collector of Asian art, acquired the entire property and had it restored. In 1951, after the death of Alfred Baur, the castle was taken over by the Baur Foundation. Tournay Castle has been privately owned again since 2009.

Owner of the estate and the castle

	Period	owner
1.	12th century - 1384	Nobles of Aguières or Anières
2.	1384-1536	Genthod family
3.	1536-1546	Jaques de Viry (Lord of Tournay)
4th	1546 -?	Nicolas de Flert (Lord of Tournay) and Antoine Calvin
5.	? - 1558	Adrien de Pergrimand or Briquemanet (Lord of Villemongis and Tournay)
6th	1558-1562	François Moncel (Lord of Tournay)
7th	1562-1573	Antoine Lullin (Lord of Tournay)
8th.	1573-1583	Jean de Brosses (Lord of Tournay) and Pierre Lullin (Lord of Tournay)
9.	1583-1595	Jean de Brosses (Lord of Tournay)
10.	1595-1604	?
11.	1604-1617	Pierre de Brosses (Lord of Tournay)
12.	1617-1674	Charles de Brosses (Lord of Tournay)
13.	1674-1741	Claude de Brosses (Lord of Tournay)
14th	1741-1778	Charles de Brosses (Lord of Tournay)
15th	1758-1778	Voltaire
16.	1778 - December 8, 1793	René-Augustin de Brosses (Lord of Tournay)
17th	February 10, 1794-1915	Panissod family (four generations)
18th	1915 - December 9, 1951	Alfred Baur
19th	December 27, 1951-2009	Baur Foundation
20th	2009	Nicole Propper

Architecture and layout

The castle stands on a slight hill above Pregny, has a total area of 521 m² and a height of 22 meters. It consists of two towers connected to a rectangular two-story residential building. A deep dry trench belongs to the property, but it is part of the original property. The remains of a former curtain wall, on which round towers once stood, were embedded in a garden that now surrounds the castle. Although the property extends over a total area of 335,156 m², the castle itself only includes 331,911 m².