Château de Gaillon
Encyclopedia
The Château de Gaillon is a renaissance
castle located in Gaillon
, Haute-Normandie
region of France.
, Cardinal Archbishop of Rouen
; he made of the old château-fort a palatial Early Renaissance structure of unparalleled luxury and magnificence, the most ambitious and significant French building project of its time. Isabella d'Este
Gonzaga was kept abreast of its development from the Mantuan ambassador in France.
When in 1498 his patron, the duc d'Orléans, acceded to the throne as Louis XII
, d'Amboise, who had spent much time in northern Italy on diplomatic missions and had been viceroy in Milan
in 1500, where he had met Leonardo da Vinci
and other artists and humanists, was suddenly raised to the high position of cardinal and prime minister. He had access to the architect-engineer Fra Giocondo, who had been invited to France by the king, and to the Italian garden designer Pacello da Mercogliano
. By 1508 Gaillon's splendid new ranges and gardens, one of the first Renaissance
structures in France, were fit to receive Louis XII and his queen, Anne de Bretagne.
The Gothic range that formed an irregular outer court is entered through a massive gatehouse, remodeled in 1509, with octagonal corner towers and steep-pitched slate roofs. The decorative elements of its shallow-relief carvings in panels and pilasters are drawn from the Classical repertory. Behind the first, irregular court Cardinal d'Amboise constructed a range, the Galerie des Cerfs with the central triumphal gateway, the Porte de Genes (the "Genoa Gate"), which set apart a trapezoidal cour d'honneur surrounded with two-storey ranges, two facing one another with arcaded lower storeys. High pitched slate roofs were rhythmically pierced with dormers. A helical staircase tower stood in one corner.
The north range was the new Grand'Maison, begun in 1502, which contained the suite of apartments of Cardinal d'Amboise. Between the chapel and the Tour de la Sirène at the northeast corner of the château, runs the vaulted gallery open to the view over the valley of the Seine
. It is the first French loggia
with an outward-looking aspect.
At the center of the court once stood the finest fountain in France, which received its own plate in Jacques Androuet du Cerceau
's Les Plus Excellents Bastiments de France. The fountain was commissioned 14 September 1506 from the Genoese sculptors Agostino Solari, Antonio della Porta and Pace Gazini, as a gift from the Republic of Venice
to Cardinal d'Amboise, for having evicted the Sforza from Milan.
It was twenty-two feet high, surmounted by a sculpture of John the Baptist, whose presence was a reminder of such fountains' origins in baptismal fonts, above stacked vase-forms with lactating Graces
and urinating boys by Bertrand de Meynal and Jérôme Pacherot. Masks spat water from two superposed basins above an octagonal tank with heraldic and emblemmatic bas-reliefs. At the time it was built the fountain at Gaillon perhaps had no equal in Italy, unless it was inspired by a feature in the gardens of Poggio Reale, laid out for Alfonso II of Naples
. The lower octagonal Carrara marble basin was removed from Gaillon when the fountain was disassembled by the Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld in 1754 and set up in the gardens at Liancourt (Oise). In 1911 it was removed to the Château de la Rochefoucauld, where it may be seen today on the upper terrace.
From the main court a second turreted gatehouse in one corner opened onto a bridge across the moat that provided access to a large courtyard, on the far side of which a range of new buildings with a central towered gateway opened into the splendid enclosed parterre
designed by Pacello da Mercogliano. Its wide central gravelled walk led through a central pavilion open in four directions to a two-story pavilion set into the far wall. The high ground to the left was planted with trees. On the right a long gallery enclosing the parterre separated it from the patterned beds of vegetables and fruit-trees on a lower level, beneath a massively buttressed retaining wall. A number of conservative features stand out in this project at the dawn of the French formal garden, notably the enclosure of the main parterre and the lack of cohesive linking the various features. "At Gaillon the possibilities of the terraced site are ignored as also had been the case at Blois, and the use of ramps or stairs to achieve an architectural unity did not seem as yet a possibility" (Adams 1969 p 18).
At Gaillon Charles Cardinal de Bourbon succeeded Cardinal d'Amboise. For him an avenue was cut through the woods of the uppermost garden level; it led to a terrace cut into the wooded slope with the Maison Blanche, a two-story white marble pavilion with an arcaded lower story that was set on an artificial island at the end of a short canal; at the other end was a "hermitage" of rockwork rising from the center of a square water tank. Both the pavilion and the rockwork Parnasse de Gaillon contained grotto
s, the one natural, the other architectural. In 1566, when the Cardinal entertained Catherine de' Medici
during the siege of Rouen at the height of the Wars of Religion
, the Maison Blanche was the setting for a pastoral masque
. The features were engraved by Jacques Androuet du Cerceau
, whom William Howard Adams has suggested may have designed the ensemble (Adams 1969 p. 25-26, figs 17-18).
Gaillon received a long succession of royal guests: Henri III
and Henri IV
, Louis XIV
, and chancellor Séguier
.
Jacques-Nicolas Colbert
, the son of Jean-Baptiste Colbert
and Archbishop of Rouen, further embellished the château and its grounds with the work of Jules Hardouin-Mansart and André Le Nôtre
.
Gaillon was burned out in a violent fire in 1764, but reconstructed: here the Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld received Benjamin Franklin
and Louis XVI as a Carthusian
monastery until the Revolution
. Vandalized and emptied in 1790, it was sold as a national property and partly dismantled, then served as a penitentiary 1812-1827 before being sold again to a local farmer in 1834, with the laconic remark "Ce domaine est des plus beaux de France."
One section of Fra Giocondo's facade of Gaillon was removed under the direction of Alexandre Lenoir
in the early nineteenth century for his museum of French monuments, in Paris. Lenoir's collection of architectural remnants stood on land across the Seine
from the Louvre
, the very ground that the French government provided for the establishment of the Ecole des Beaux Arts around 1830. At the direction of architect Felix Duban
the portal was integrated into the courtyard design and served as a model for students of architecture. Recently the elements of the Galerie des Cerfs and the Porte de Gênes have been restored to their original positions at Gaillon once again.
The Château is distinctly battered in its present appearance. An idea of the refinement of its furnishing can be derived from the marble bas-relief of St, George and the Dragon, executed in 1508 for the high chapel by Michel Colombe
, now at the Louvre Museum, Paris.
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
castle located in Gaillon
Gaillon
Gaillon is a commune in the Eure department in northern France.-History:The origins of Gaillon are not really known. In 892, Rollo, a Viking chief, might have ravaged Gaillon and the region, before he became the first prince of the Normans and count of Rouen in 911.The Gaillon history did begin,...
, Haute-Normandie
Haute-Normandie
Upper Normandy is one of the 27 regions of France. It was created in 1984 from two départements: Seine-Maritime and Eure, when Normandy was divided into Lower Normandy and Upper Normandy. This division continues to provoke controversy, and some continue to call for reuniting the two regions...
region of France.
History
The somewhat battered and denuded Château de Gaillon, begun in 1502 on ancient foundationswas the summer archiepiscopal residence of Georges d'AmboiseGeorges d'Amboise
Georges d'Amboise was a French Roman Catholic cardinal and minister of state. He belonged to the house of Amboise, a noble family possessed of considerable influence: of his nine brothers, four were bishops. His father, Pierre d'Amboise, seigneur de Chaumont, was chamberlain to Charles VII and...
, Cardinal Archbishop of Rouen
Archbishop of Rouen
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Rouen is an Archdiocese of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church in France. As one of the fifteen Archbishops of France, the ecclesiastical province of the archdiocese comprises the majority of Normandy....
; he made of the old château-fort a palatial Early Renaissance structure of unparalleled luxury and magnificence, the most ambitious and significant French building project of its time. Isabella d'Este
Isabella d'Este
Isabella d'Este was Marchesa of Mantua and one of the leading women of the Italian Renaissance as a major cultural and political figure. She was a patron of the arts as well as a leader of fashion, whose innovative style of dressing was copied by women throughout Italy and at the French court...
Gonzaga was kept abreast of its development from the Mantuan ambassador in France.
When in 1498 his patron, the duc d'Orléans, acceded to the throne as Louis XII
Louis XII of France
Louis proved to be a popular king. At the end of his reign the crown deficit was no greater than it had been when he succeeded Charles VIII in 1498, despite several expensive military campaigns in Italy. His fiscal reforms of 1504 and 1508 tightened and improved procedures for the collection of taxes...
, d'Amboise, who had spent much time in northern Italy on diplomatic missions and had been viceroy in Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
in 1500, where he had met Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...
and other artists and humanists, was suddenly raised to the high position of cardinal and prime minister. He had access to the architect-engineer Fra Giocondo, who had been invited to France by the king, and to the Italian garden designer Pacello da Mercogliano
Pacello da Mercogliano
Pacello da Mercogliano was a designer of gardens and hydraulic engineer, who is documented under Charles VIII at Amboise with the responsibility of bringing water from the Loire up to the garden parterres laid out to one side of the château...
. By 1508 Gaillon's splendid new ranges and gardens, one of the first Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
structures in France, were fit to receive Louis XII and his queen, Anne de Bretagne.
The Gothic range that formed an irregular outer court is entered through a massive gatehouse, remodeled in 1509, with octagonal corner towers and steep-pitched slate roofs. The decorative elements of its shallow-relief carvings in panels and pilasters are drawn from the Classical repertory. Behind the first, irregular court Cardinal d'Amboise constructed a range, the Galerie des Cerfs with the central triumphal gateway, the Porte de Genes (the "Genoa Gate"), which set apart a trapezoidal cour d'honneur surrounded with two-storey ranges, two facing one another with arcaded lower storeys. High pitched slate roofs were rhythmically pierced with dormers. A helical staircase tower stood in one corner.
The north range was the new Grand'Maison, begun in 1502, which contained the suite of apartments of Cardinal d'Amboise. Between the chapel and the Tour de la Sirène at the northeast corner of the château, runs the vaulted gallery open to the view over the valley of the Seine
Seine
The Seine is a -long river and an important commercial waterway within the Paris Basin in the north of France. It rises at Saint-Seine near Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plateau, flowing through Paris and into the English Channel at Le Havre . It is navigable by ocean-going vessels...
. It is the first French loggia
Loggia
Loggia is the name given to an architectural feature, originally of Minoan design. They are often a gallery or corridor at ground level, sometimes higher, on the facade of a building and open to the air on one side, where it is supported by columns or pierced openings in the wall...
with an outward-looking aspect.
At the center of the court once stood the finest fountain in France, which received its own plate in Jacques Androuet du Cerceau
Androuet du Cerceau
Androuet du Cerceau was a family of French architects and designers active in the 16th and early 17th century.*Jacques I Androuet du Cerceau *Jean Baptiste Androuet du Cerceau...
's Les Plus Excellents Bastiments de France. The fountain was commissioned 14 September 1506 from the Genoese sculptors Agostino Solari, Antonio della Porta and Pace Gazini, as a gift from the Republic of Venice
Republic of Venice
The Republic of Venice or Venetian Republic was a state originating from the city of Venice in Northeastern Italy. It existed for over a millennium, from the late 7th century until 1797. It was formally known as the Most Serene Republic of Venice and is often referred to as La Serenissima, in...
to Cardinal d'Amboise, for having evicted the Sforza from Milan.
It was twenty-two feet high, surmounted by a sculpture of John the Baptist, whose presence was a reminder of such fountains' origins in baptismal fonts, above stacked vase-forms with lactating Graces
Charites
In Greek mythology, a Charis is one of several Charites , goddesses of charm, beauty, nature, human creativity and fertility. They ordinarily numbered three, from youngest to oldest: Aglaea , Euphrosyne , and Thalia . In Roman mythology they were known as the Gratiae, the "Graces"...
and urinating boys by Bertrand de Meynal and Jérôme Pacherot. Masks spat water from two superposed basins above an octagonal tank with heraldic and emblemmatic bas-reliefs. At the time it was built the fountain at Gaillon perhaps had no equal in Italy, unless it was inspired by a feature in the gardens of Poggio Reale, laid out for Alfonso II of Naples
Alfonso II of Naples
Alfonso II of Naples , also called Alfonso II d'Aragon, was King of Naples from 25 January 1494 to 22 February 1495 with the title King of Naples and Jerusalem...
. The lower octagonal Carrara marble basin was removed from Gaillon when the fountain was disassembled by the Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld in 1754 and set up in the gardens at Liancourt (Oise). In 1911 it was removed to the Château de la Rochefoucauld, where it may be seen today on the upper terrace.
From the main court a second turreted gatehouse in one corner opened onto a bridge across the moat that provided access to a large courtyard, on the far side of which a range of new buildings with a central towered gateway opened into the splendid enclosed parterre
Parterre
A parterre is a formal garden construction on a level surface consisting of planting beds, edged in stone or tightly clipped hedging, and gravel paths arranged to form a pleasing, usually symmetrical pattern. Parterres need not have any flowers at all...
designed by Pacello da Mercogliano. Its wide central gravelled walk led through a central pavilion open in four directions to a two-story pavilion set into the far wall. The high ground to the left was planted with trees. On the right a long gallery enclosing the parterre separated it from the patterned beds of vegetables and fruit-trees on a lower level, beneath a massively buttressed retaining wall. A number of conservative features stand out in this project at the dawn of the French formal garden, notably the enclosure of the main parterre and the lack of cohesive linking the various features. "At Gaillon the possibilities of the terraced site are ignored as also had been the case at Blois, and the use of ramps or stairs to achieve an architectural unity did not seem as yet a possibility" (Adams 1969 p 18).
At Gaillon Charles Cardinal de Bourbon succeeded Cardinal d'Amboise. For him an avenue was cut through the woods of the uppermost garden level; it led to a terrace cut into the wooded slope with the Maison Blanche, a two-story white marble pavilion with an arcaded lower story that was set on an artificial island at the end of a short canal; at the other end was a "hermitage" of rockwork rising from the center of a square water tank. Both the pavilion and the rockwork Parnasse de Gaillon contained grotto
Grotto
A grotto is any type of natural or artificial cave that is associated with modern, historic or prehistoric use by humans. When it is not an artificial garden feature, a grotto is often a small cave near water and often flooded or liable to flood at high tide...
s, the one natural, the other architectural. In 1566, when the Cardinal entertained Catherine de' Medici
Catherine de' Medici
Catherine de' Medici was an Italian noblewoman who was Queen consort of France from 1547 until 1559, as the wife of King Henry II of France....
during the siege of Rouen at the height of the Wars of Religion
French Wars of Religion
The French Wars of Religion is the name given to a period of civil infighting and military operations, primarily fought between French Catholics and Protestants . The conflict involved the factional disputes between the aristocratic houses of France, such as the House of Bourbon and House of Guise...
, the Maison Blanche was the setting for a pastoral masque
Masque
The masque was a form of festive courtly entertainment which flourished in 16th and early 17th century Europe, though it was developed earlier in Italy, in forms including the intermedio...
. The features were engraved by Jacques Androuet du Cerceau
Androuet du Cerceau
Androuet du Cerceau was a family of French architects and designers active in the 16th and early 17th century.*Jacques I Androuet du Cerceau *Jean Baptiste Androuet du Cerceau...
, whom William Howard Adams has suggested may have designed the ensemble (Adams 1969 p. 25-26, figs 17-18).
Gaillon received a long succession of royal guests: Henri III
Henry III of France
Henry III was King of France from 1574 to 1589. As Henry of Valois, he was the first elected monarch of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth with the dual titles of King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1573 to 1575.-Childhood:Henry was born at the Royal Château de Fontainebleau,...
and Henri IV
Henry IV of France
Henry IV , Henri-Quatre, was King of France from 1589 to 1610 and King of Navarre from 1572 to 1610. He was the first monarch of the Bourbon branch of the Capetian dynasty in France....
, Louis XIV
Louis XIV of France
Louis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days...
, and chancellor Séguier
Pierre Séguier
-Early years:Born in Paris, France of a prominent legal family originating in Quercy. His grandfather, Pierre Séguier , was président à mortier in the parlement of Paris from 1554 to 1576, and the chancellor's father, Jean Séguier, a seigneur d'Autry, was civil lieutenant of Paris at the time of...
.
Jacques-Nicolas Colbert
Jacques-Nicolas Colbert
Jacques-Nicolas Colbert was a French churchman.Youngest son of Minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert, he was educated for a career in the church, tutored by Noël Alexandre, a Dominican theologian and philosopher later condemned for his Jansenist views.The young Colbert was abbot at Le Bec-Hellouin before...
, the son of Jean-Baptiste Colbert
Jean-Baptiste Colbert
Jean-Baptiste Colbert was a French politician who served as the Minister of Finances of France from 1665 to 1683 under the rule of King Louis XIV. His relentless hard work and thrift made him an esteemed minister. He achieved a reputation for his work of improving the state of French manufacturing...
and Archbishop of Rouen, further embellished the château and its grounds with the work of Jules Hardouin-Mansart and André Le Nôtre
André Le Nôtre
André Le Nôtre was a French landscape architect and the principal gardener of King Louis XIV of France...
.
Gaillon was burned out in a violent fire in 1764, but reconstructed: here the Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld received Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin
Dr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...
and Louis XVI as a Carthusian
Carthusian
The Carthusian Order, also called the Order of St. Bruno, is a Roman Catholic religious order of enclosed monastics. The order was founded by Saint Bruno of Cologne in 1084 and includes both monks and nuns...
monastery until the Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
. Vandalized and emptied in 1790, it was sold as a national property and partly dismantled, then served as a penitentiary 1812-1827 before being sold again to a local farmer in 1834, with the laconic remark "Ce domaine est des plus beaux de France."
One section of Fra Giocondo's facade of Gaillon was removed under the direction of Alexandre Lenoir
Alexandre Lenoir
Marie Alexandre Lenoir was a French archaeologist. Self-taught and devoted to saving France's historic monuments, sculptures and tombs from the ravages of the French Revolution, notably those of Saint-Denis and Sainte-Geneviève.- Life :The ravages of the Revolution caused the birth of the Musée...
in the early nineteenth century for his museum of French monuments, in Paris. Lenoir's collection of architectural remnants stood on land across the Seine
Seine
The Seine is a -long river and an important commercial waterway within the Paris Basin in the north of France. It rises at Saint-Seine near Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plateau, flowing through Paris and into the English Channel at Le Havre . It is navigable by ocean-going vessels...
from the Louvre
Louvre
The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...
, the very ground that the French government provided for the establishment of the Ecole des Beaux Arts around 1830. At the direction of architect Felix Duban
Félix Duban
Jacques Félix Duban was a French architect, the contemporary of Jacques Ignace Hittorff and Henri Labrouste.Duban won the Prix de Rome in 1823, the most prestigious award of the École des Beaux-Arts...
the portal was integrated into the courtyard design and served as a model for students of architecture. Recently the elements of the Galerie des Cerfs and the Porte de Gênes have been restored to their original positions at Gaillon once again.
The Château is distinctly battered in its present appearance. An idea of the refinement of its furnishing can be derived from the marble bas-relief of St, George and the Dragon, executed in 1508 for the high chapel by Michel Colombe
Michel Colombe
Michel Colombe was a French sculptor whose work bridged the late Gothic and Renaissance styles.Born in Bourges into a family of artisans, he was active in Tours. Colombe's surviving works all date from his old age. He created the gisant figures of the two deceased children of Charles VIII of...
, now at the Louvre Museum, Paris.
External links
- Views of Château de Gaillon on old postcards
- Ville Gaillon: le Château de Gaillon
- The marble basin from the Château de Gaillon garden fountain - (at the Château de la RochefoucauldLa Rochefoucauld, CharenteLa Rochefoucauld is a commune in the Charente department in southwestern France.It lies very close to the line which delineated occupied France and Vichy France during World War II.-Etymology:...
)