The Renaissance in Blois and the Loire Valley What you can see

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In the Loire Valley, and more specifically in Blois, what remains of the Renaissance period?

A period so long ago that it brings back memories of history classes. But what did the wind from Italy bring to the Loire Valley? And what can we see of Renaissance architecture in Blois today?
Thanks to the excellent “Renaissance” booklet published in 2013 by Villes d’Art & d’Histoire. We bring you the best extracts in this article.

You can download the entire booklet at the end of the article.

A bit of Renaissance history

It refers to an intellectual and artistic movement that emerged in Italy during the Quattrocento, the 15th century, characterized by the rediscovery of ancient texts, the desire to imitate them, and at the same time to engage in scholarly criticism. For the general public, the Renaissance is synonymous with the châteaux of the Loire Valley. But this is a restrictive view: firstly, there are Renaissance châteaux all over France, especially in the Île-de-France region, starting with Fontainebleau, the main building site at the end of François I’s reign; and secondly, the presence of the Renaissance in the Loire Valley is not limited to the great châteaux.

Churches, public buildings, manor houses, private mansions, etc. were all built in the Loire Valley.

The contribution of the Renaissance to the arts

In the arts, the period was characterized by a desire to represent space convincingly, as evidenced by the invention of atmospheric perspective in Flanders and geometric perspective in Italy… In art and architecture, artists looked to Antiquity and imitated not only its forms but also its constructive principles.

The life of the Kings of France in the Loire Valley

The movement of people and ideas between Italy and the Netherlands was far more important than the Italian wars led by Charles VIII, Louis XII and François I in bringing this intellectual and artistic trend to France. In the kingdom, no man of power embodied the Renaissance better than François I. He was the patron of Clément Marot and François Rabelais, he founded what was to become the Collège de France, he created legal deposit, he was the guest of Leonardo da Vinci and Benvenuto Cellini, and he built the castles of Blois and Chambord…

Kings settled in the Loire Valley as a legacy of the Hundred Years’ War. Each one favored the city in which he was born.

In 1418, the future Charles VII fled Paris, which had fallen into the hands of the Burgundians allied with the English. He took refuge in Bourges, then in Tours. Although he recaptured Paris in 1437, he and his successors remained wary of the rebellious capital for a long time, preferring to stay in the Loire Valley…

Louis XI was born in Bourges, grew up in Loches and lived in the Loire Valley (Tours, Chinon, Loches); Charles VIII was born in Amboise, Louis XII in Blois, and later Henri II also in Amboise.

Kings of France are raised in the Loire Valley

François I was born in Cognac (his father was Count of Angoulême), but grew up at court in Amboise and Blois, where he stayed most often at the beginning of his reign, when he wasn’t visiting his mother Louise de Savoie in Romorantin. Although, after the defeat at Pavia and his captivity in Madrid, he decided to make Paris and the Île-de-France his main residence from 1527 onwards, the Loire Valley was not neglected and the royal children were raised in Blois and Amboise, where the climate was considered healthier.

An itinerant court, which moved from château to château and town to town, drew princes and, above all, numerous nobles, servants of the crown, in its wake, eager to settle as close as possible to the king. From 5,000 to 15,000 people lived there, depending on the period, requiring solid logistics, promoting trade and the development of financial flows, and attracting artists, craftsmen and suppliers to what today would be called the luxury industry.
Towns obtained confirmation and reinforcement of their privileges from each sovereign, through the creation of bodies of aldermen (as witnessed by the construction of numerous town halls), fairs and the establishment of new industries such as silk in Tours or watchmaking in Blois. The development of trade led to the expansion of the Loire navy, which François I designated as the kingdom’s leading trade route.

A NEW ART OF BUILDING

The first signs of the Renaissance appeared in the mid-15th century. The Palais Jacques Coeur, in Bourges, was built around 1450 for Charles VII’s silversmith. Although the decor remained Gothic, it was of an unprecedented abundance and scope that would not be seen again until fifty years later in the Hôtel d’Alluye in Blois, built for another financier, Florimond Robertet.

It was in these same years that the antique repertoire, already cultivated in Italy, appeared under the brush of the Touraine painter Jean Fouquet, who spent time in Florence and Rome around 1445, and brought back the motifs of pilasters and pediments, Corinthian capitals and colored marbles with which he populated his compositions.

Antique ornamentation

But the spread of this new ornamental vocabulary was slow. Around 1480, his successors used it for architectural frames for illuminations, around 1490 for decorative sculpture and from 1500 for architectural decoration.

Charles VIII’s trip to Italy is often credited with introducing the Renaissance to France. But more than architects or painters, it was technicians he brought back in 1496: carpenters, goldsmiths, tailors, and even parrot keepers or an incubator maker, but also garden “mottlers”. Indeed, in Italy, more than antiquisite architecture, which was too learned to be understood, it was the gardens that won the admiration of the French.

Italian gardens

Charles VIII at Amboise, then Louis XII at Blois, had Italian terraced gardens laid out. The Loire Valley was covered with gardens. Alas, they have all disappeared, and all that remains of the royal gardens in Blois are an orangery and the so-called Anne de Bretagne pavilion.

THE FIRST RENAISSANCE Vast urban projects

This new concern for regularity is little in evidence in town planning, which often remains faithful to the medieval plot structure. Nevertheless, we can cite a few examples.

The Romorantin project

In Romorantin, the fiefdom of Louise de Savoie (the king’s mother), Leonardo da Vinci, called to France by Francis I, designed an ideal city around a royal palace with a regular layout overlooking the Sauldre river; despite some earthworks, the project was never completed, but several of his ideas were adopted at Chambord.

On the other hand, much earlier attention was paid to improving water supply and creating hydraulic networks in towns to supply public fountains, some of them monumental, such as the Louis XII fountain (1492) in Blois or the Beaune-Semblançay fountain (1511) in Tours.

Wooden panels still in vogue during the Renaissance

In Tours, there was an intense period of timber-framed house construction from 1470 to 1520. Timber-framed houses, often referred to as “medieval”, mostly date from the Renaissance. Gable- or gutter-fronted houses were also common in medieval times, and continue to be so today.

Other urban mansions are modelled on seigniorial dwellings: a main building with a spiral staircase housed in an outwork tower. In later urban mansions, the courtyard-high dwelling is sometimes accompanied by rear gardens(Hôtel Sardini in Blois). Decorations became more abundant and spread to more modest residences.

The evolution of decor

The new antique décor appeared discreetly around 1500, in Blois on the Louis XII wing of the château and at the Hôtel d’Alluye. As sculptors and master builders moved from Gothic to Renaissance, so did religious clients.

After this experimental phase, a fairly homogeneous style began to emerge in the great châteaux, reigning until around 1540 and characterizing the First Loire Renaissance. The use of pilasters to frame windows, inaugurated at Gaillon in Normandy, was adopted from 1510-1515 onwards in the castles of Bury (destroyed), Chenonceau, Azay-le-Rideau, Blois and, of course, Chambord, begun in 1519. This formal language gave rise to a more diversified variation in urban living. Pilasters and cornices were also used in religious architecture.

Renaissance sites in Blois

In 1498, following the accession to the throne of Louis II d’Orléans under the name of Louis XII, the Château de Blois took on the status of royal residence.
Now the capital of the kingdom, the medieval town underwent a metamorphosis. The court gradually moved closer to its sovereign. Courtiers and wealthy merchants built mansions and timber-framed houses whose rich decorations evoked the beginnings of the French Renaissance.
The prosperity of the first half of the 16th century was also reflected in the refurbishment of an extensive network of fountains from 1512 onwards, and the restoration of the churches of Saint-Solenne and Saint-Saturnin. The renovation of the château, which continued under François I (between 1515 and 1520), took place during a period of architectural renewal. Antique decorative vocabulary and the timid introduction of orders in royal creations served as a model for the whole city.
But after 1520 (the start of construction of Chambord), the effervescence of the building sites faded as the court of Blois was gradually abandoned for the new capital: Paris.

6 places to see in Blois

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