Amboise GB
AMBOISE 
Amboise was considered as the dwelling of the kings during the XVth and XVI centuries. Considered as the palace of Charles VIII, the chateau is the last fortress of the Middle Ages and the 1st palace of the Renaissance and this thanks to 2 kings: Charles VIII and Francis 1st.
I. HISTORY
- The site of Amboise is one of many medieval castles
- The rocky spur ended by a peak 20 meters above the Loire constitutes a natural strong place occupied since the Iron Age.
- The presence of a fortress on the current place of the Chateau is already mentioned at the Vth century.
- Until the XIIth C Amboise is cut into 2 parts: one owned by the counts of Anjou the other by the Chaumont-Amboise family.
- And it’s this family that will own the whole seigneury from 1106 to the middle of the XVth C.
- In 1431 Louis d’Amboise is put in jail and his goods taken because he’s accused of betrayal against the favourite of king Charles VII.
- 3 years later: chateau becomes royal castle. But CVII doesn’t live here preferring Loches or Chinon.
- His son Louis XI remains here and undertakes works at the west of the headland at the place of the medieval keep.
- But the most important are made by Louis XI’s son, Charles VIII who spent his youth and settled in definitively at the beginning of the 1490s.
- From 1489 he undertook a first series of works to embellish the castle to which he was very attached.
- All along the rampart south-west, a home is made to receive the apartment of the king at the 1st floor and another apartment for the queen at the ground floor. But quickly this home is not enough.
- By the end of 1492, the king undertakes the general enlarging of the castle at the east of the ditch that limited the court from the keep.
- In the south it: 1st the construction of a big block of home called Home of the seven vertues in reference of the statues of the vertues which decorated its pillars.
- In the north, a 2nd home giving on the Loire is built.
- 2 huge cavalry towers are made: Tour des Minimes (north) and Tour Heurtault (south) shelter a slope suitable for coaches leading to these 2 homes which allowed to reach directly the castle from the city.
II. NORTH FACADE
Ø Tour des Minimes:
- The best preserved. Adjoining to the home of the king this huge round tower contains a wide slope that could be easily climb by horse riders and harnesses for the supplying of the chateau. The slope winds around an empty core which brings ventilation and lightening.
- The tower is opened at its base by a door before defended by a drawbridge and a gatehouse on top machicolations and crenels completed the defence of the chateau.
Ø Wing Charles VIII:
- Completes the medieval fortress with the construction of a new palace composed of the home of the king and a home for the queen (doesn’t exist anymore).
- This wing, in front of the Loire, has a big gallery with 7 arcades, 7 high windows and gothic style dormer windows.
- This facade is quite innovative for that time (XVth C): 1st the regularity with vertical and horizontal lines creating an effect of square pattern. The vertical lines dominate (= current aesthetic reference in architecture of the end of the XVth C) with buttresses going on to the roofs with pinnacles separe the bays from the windows. But also horizontal lines: gallery at the 1st level adorned by a stone balustrade at the basis of the roof. The main floor is emphasized with an iron railing.
- But the real innovation is the wide opening on the outside of the facade. This shows that the king had a real will to let the sight of the landscape surrounding the chateau coming into the castle.
- The gallery of the ground floor and the balcony of the 1st floor were made to go for a walk and to enjoy the landscape like Charles VIII saw it in Italy.
- Amboise is at the turning-point between the medieval castles, which are closed, and the opened castles of the Renaissance that it heralds with a few years in advance.
- 1st example of the Italian inspiration on the bank of the river Loire. It shows the progressive transition between the gothic architecture and the renaissance.
- The deco is still totally gothic (flamboyant) and put the stress on the highest parts and above all on the dormer windows: tympanum sculpted with king’s emblem: a C for Charles + a sword.
- Pinnacles are linked by little flying buttresses to other pinnacles surmounting the buttresses of the facade.
- Chapel Saint-Hubert: built between 1491 and 1491 by Flemish artists, totally gothic (flamboyant) because made before Charles VIII went to Italy (for Naples campaigns) and discover the Italian architecture. It’s the last supposed residence of Leonardo da Vinci who died in Amboise in 1519 (tomb would be under transept)
III. King Francis 1st
- When Louise de Savoie, cousin of Louis XII, and her son future Francis Ist settled in Amboise in 1507, a new wing is built by LXII. F 1st will make some modifications by adding a new level with dormer windows where we can find the characteristically ornamentation of F 1st. He was fascinated by the Italian renaissance.
- After Charles VIII (1498) works are stopped, F 1st will continue the construction of the home at the north and the Tour Heurtault.
- After his mother’s death he abandoned Amboise for Chambord and Fontainebleau.
IV. Events
§ 1560: Under the transitory reign of François II, the castle was the theatre of the conspiracy of Amboise, prelude of the wars of religions.
§XVIIth C : The royal court leaves Amboise
§ The castle becomes a prison
§ XVIIIth C: Partially destroyed castle: Revolution
§ XIXth C: Most of the castle was demolished at the time of the First Empire, when Napoleon offers the castle in bad condition to the ex-consul Roger Ducos, which did not have the means to restore it, and preferred to destroy the two third of the buildings between 1806 and 1810.