Renaissance Castles on the Loire -- Chambord

When we think of castles, we are really thinking of Renaissance castles. In France, these beauties were constructed in imitation of the Italian castles that exhibited a royal splendor that was missing in France because of her many wars. However, the 16th century ushered in peace--and the opportunity for the French kings to build not just protective fortresses, but beautiful castles. Charles VIII (1470-98; king 1483-98) began this new trend, but Francis I (1494-1547) notably expanded on this work when he became king in 1515.

The château par excellence is Chambord a hunting lodge on the banks of the Loire River. According to Jean d'Haussonville, director-General of the Domaine National de Chambord, the chateau is a monument to beauty and intelligence, the very essence of the Renaissance. Its conception and symbolism express the idea of the perpetual renewal of the life cycle, man's place in the cosmos, and eternity. Chambord is a work of art, a work of genius, the world of dreams, and the power of emotion like a musical composition.

Francis (1494-1547; king since 1515) began construction early in his reign and Louis XIV (1638-1715; king since 1643) finished it in accordance with the design of Francis. Chambord is the anti-Fontainebleau, neither a residence of kings nor a maze of palaces, but a radically singular work of architecture.

Francis I 

A patron of the arts, Francis I promoted the French Renaissance by attracting many Italian artists including Leonardo da Vinci, whom he sponsored at Clos Lucé. Francis' reign saw important cultural changes with the growth of central power in France, the spread of humanism and Protestantism, and the beginning of French exploration of the New World.

He sought to eradicate Latin as the language of knowledge and declared French the national language of the kingdom. In 1530 he opened the Collège des trois langues, or Collège Royal.

Much of Francis' military activity focused on his sworn enemy, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. Francis and Charles maintained an intensely personal rivalry. Charles, in fact, brashly challenged Francis to single combat multiple times. In addition to the Holy Roman Empire, Charles personally ruled Spain, Austria, and a number of smaller possessions neighboring France. He was thus a constant threat to Francis' kingdom. Feeling surrounded by the Habsburg Empire, Francis formed the controversial Franco-Ottoman alliance with Muslim sultan Suleiman the Magnificent to collude against Charles V. Following his predecessors, Francis also continued the Italian Wars. In 1533, he initiated official France-Morocco relations with the Wattassid ruler of Fez, Ahmed ben Mohammed who welcomed French overtures and granted freedom of shipping and protection for French traders.  

Francis built, renovated, and expanded many new structures. For example, he continued the work of his predecessors on the Château d'Amboise and renovated the Château de Blois. he rebuilt the Louvre Palace by transforming it from a medieval fortress into a building of Renaissance splendour. He financed a new City Hall (the Hôtel de Ville) for Paris and reconstructed and expanded the Château de Fontainebleau, his favorite place of residence as well as that of his official mistress, Anne, Duchess of Étampes. He began construction of the magnificent Château de Chambord in the architectural styles of the Italian renaissance. Each of these projects was luxuriously decorated both inside and out.  

 

Jean-Jacques Goldman illustrates the Renaissance-style of castle life in this fantastic rendition of "Tournent les violons" (Turn the Violins).  

 

Chambord

The Chambord estate is 20 square miles in size, far from the city, and originally built on unstable ground. Francis chose Chambord as a place of reclusion where he would receive only a "small band" of companions--like around 5,000--during the months of October to December. A hunter at heart, the lands here were also rich in game. 

Actually, Chambord is a typical medieval castle, although much, much larger. It has a keep, turrets, walking space on the high roofs. But this was deliberate in its design. Its aim was to evoke a sense of military power with the ideal of the king as knight, to which Francis aspired. What make Chambord modern is the regularity of its plan. It is rectangular set in a grid of great squares. The keep occupies one of these squares and is subdivided into a grid of five squares by five. Each of these squares constitutes a module of the plan with the great staircase occupying the exact center. Around it is a great hall in the shape of a Greek cross with the living quarters on each of the four corners. The tall windows reflect the French Gothic tradition and the facades are structured geometrically and symmetrically on each of the three stories of the building. The crisscrossing design is filled in with door, windows, and arches in the same way as classical antiquity or the new Italian palazzos. It is designed to dazzle.


The double helix staircase in the center of the building and its lantern stand majestically and go all the way up to the terraces of the roof "in an almost divine relation between the terrestrial and the celestial", says art historian Éric Johannot