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The Loire valley
châteaux
The Loire valley is the
historical and artistic heartland of the
french "Renaissance" and its italian
architectural influence.
There is no other place with
such a concentration of castles, manors,
churches and listed
gardens. |
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Chambord: It is the largest castle in the Loire
Valley and was built to serve as a hunting lodge
for King Françis I, who maintained his royal
residences in Blois and Amboise.
The château was
never intended to provide any form of defense
from enemies. The walls, towers and partial moat
are purely decorative. Elements of the
architecture: open windows, loggia,
etc... were also borrowed from the Italian
renaissance
style. | | | |
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Amboise
castle:
King
Francis I was raised at Amboise, which belonged
to his mother, Louise of Savoy, and during the
first few years of his reign the château reached
the pinnacle of its glory. As a guest of the
King, Leonardo da Vinci came to Amboise in
December 1515 and lived and worked in the nearby
Clos Lucé, connected to the château by an
underground passage. Henri II and his wife,
Catherine de Medicis, raised their children in
the château along with Mary Stuart, the
child Queen of Scotland who had been promised in
marriage to the future French Francis
II. | | | |
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The castle of
Blois.
When Francis I took power,
his wife Queen Claude had him refurbish Blois
with the intention of moving to it from the
Château d'Amboise. Francis initiated the
construction of a new wing and created one of
the period’s most important libraries in the
castle. But, after the death of his wife in
1524, he spent very little time at Blois and the
massive library was moved to the royal Château
de Fontainebleau where it was used to form the
royal library that forms the core now of the
Bibliothèque Nationale de
France
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Talcy
castle
Near the village of Mer, 20
km off Vendome, famous for the poems Ronsard was
dedicating to "Cassandre" the young lady
of the
castle. | |
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Chenonceau:
After Francis'
death in 1547, Henri II offered the
château to his mistress, Diane de Poitiers
who became fervently attached to it and its
wonderfull sights of the river.
She had the
arched bridge built, joining the château to its
opposite bank and oversaw the planting of
extensive flower, vegetable gardens and
orchards.
After the death of
King Henri II in 1559, the castle was
recovered by Catherine de Medicis
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