Chateaux of Ile-de-France
Château d'Étampes
The Château d"Étampes was a castle in the town of Étampes. The principal remains are of the 12th-century keep, the Tour de Guinette. The Château d"Étampes was an early 10th-century stronghold of Robert the Pious, King of France, that comprised both a palace proper and motte. Between 1130 and 1150, a new castle was created overlooking the valley, culminating in a strong keep or d ...Château de By
The Château de By is a town museum run by the town of Thomery. The building was purchased in 1859 by the French animal painter Rosa Bonheur, who moved her studio there. Aged 37, she was at the height of her popularity and made the building her home and studio for forty years, with pens for her animals in its park. She rebuilt the chateau to make it comfortable and to add a vast neo-Gothic studio room with the space ...Château de Sigy
Château de Sigy is a modernised castle which dates originally from the 14th century. It was much altered in the 15th, 17th and 18th centuries. Of note are the walls and roofs of the castle and its outbuildings, including two towers, the gardens surrounded by moats and two bridges across the moats. Inside, the central staircase with wooden balusters is beneath a dome. In the north wing, the grand bedroom and the Trud ...Château de Groussay
The Château de Groussay was built in 1815 by the duchesse de Charest, a daughter of Louise Elisabeth de Croÿ-Havré, marquise de Tourzel, the governess of the royal enfants de France of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. The Château was purchased in 1938-39 by the French aesthete Carlos de Beistegui, who enlarged it, with the professional help of Emilio Terry. Cecil Beaton"s inspiration for Henry ...Château de Janvry
The Château de Janvry dates back to the 17th century. It is still partially surrounded by watered moats. Its main building includes a primary wing facing west and two attached side wings, the north wing and the south wing. All wings are linked, creating a U-shaped château. The château was built around 1600 and 1650 in the Louis XIII architectural style. It has been part of the Reille family for many cen ...Château de Mesnil-Voisin
The château de Mesnil-Voisin was built by Michel Villedo in 1632-1635. It has an orangery, kitchens, coachhouses and workshops. At the centre of its communal courtyard a huge dovecote with 3000 niches and a wood-framed roof, and topped by a conical turret - it is rare in having its internal moveable staircase still intact. The course of a canal bordering the rear of the château were entirely removed between 1 ...Château de Bourron
The current Château de Bourron dates back to the 16th century, however the castle on the site was mentioned first time in 1367. From 1145 to about 1465, the estate belonged to Denis de Chailly, from the great family of the Viscount of Melun, the most important of all the commanders from the Brie. During this time she joined Joan of Arc to re-conquer France from the British. It then belonged to Charles de Melun, who ...Château Villette
Château Villette was designed by architect Francois Mansart around 1668 and finished around 1696 by his nephew Jules Hardouin-Mansart. The palace was built for Jean Dyel, the Comte d"Aufflay and Louis XIV"s ambassador to Venice. One of the most significant historical Chateaux in France, Villette is at once both simple and sumptuous with the great octagonal salon in white and blue, the elegant dining room ...Château de Farcheville
The Château de Farcheville was built by the Hugues II and Hugues III, Lords of Farcheville and Bouville. The great hall was built in 1291 and the castle chapel was consecrated in 1304. Both father and son were chamberlain to Philip IV of France. The structure possesses a rare northern French example of arched machicolations on buttresses, more characteristic of military architecture in the Languedoc. The castle pass ...Château du Saussay
The château du Saussay is built on the ruins of a 15th-century feudal castle, and is a rare collection of two 18th-century châteaux facing each other at the entrance to a Romantic park surrounded by water. Inside, their reception rooms evoke the lives of their inhabitants. The property of Olivier Le Daim, barber to the French kings from Louis XI to Louis XV, the château was burned by the Spanish during the Wars of Rel ...Château de Nangis
The Château de Nangis is a modernised castle located in the heart of the town of Nangis. The original name 'La Motte' suggests the motte-and-bailey that indicates the middle-age origin of the place. Fleury (c. 1093-1147), son of the king Philip I of France, is its oldest known lord. In 1245, the castle came into the ownership of the Montmorency family. A well known fortress in 1397, the English inflicted i ...Château de Pontchartrain
The estate of current Château de Pontchartrain was mentioned first time around 1325. The original manor was abandoned in the 16th century. Paul Phélypeaux was the king"s counselor in 1610 and the founder of the Pontchartrain branch of the Phélypeaux family, who kept the chateau for two centuries. His son Louis I Phélypeaux had the main building built between 1633 and 1662. Louis II Ph&eacu ...Château de Grosbois
Nicolas Harlay de Sancy built a château on the former lands of Saint-Victor abbey at the start of the 17th century. This was still incomplete in 1616, when it was sold to Charles de Valois (1573–1650), count of Auvergne then duke of Angoulême (1619), illegitimate son of Charles IX of France by Marie Touchet. de Valois completed the château around 1640, notably building the enclosing wall (1623) and ...Château de Diant
The Château de Diant was originally constructed in the 13th century for a companion of Philippe Auguste, with additions and modifications in the 15th century and the first half of the 19th. The castle has been protected since 1946. The gardens are also listed. The castle and gardens are privately owned are not open to the public.Château de Brou
Château de Brou was built in the second half of the 17th century by Paul-Esprit Feydeau, the Royal intendant. Important changes were made in the 18th century including the removal of a monumental staircase in the hall to allow to give more room to the bedrooms on the 1st floor. Instead, two staircases were built on the north side at each corner of the two wings of the castle. The dovecote is probably the oldest buil ...Château de Challeau
The Château de Challeau refers to two châteaux in the neighbouring communes of Dormelles and Villecerf. The first Château de Challeau was a fortified building built in the 11th century to 12th century. It has a 6m high and 1.3m thick curtain wall which surrounds an area approximately 30m by 24m, with rounded watchtowers at the corners. Unusually, it did not have a central keep, and internal buildings se ...Château d'Agnou
In the 12th century, a castle called the Château Saint-Vincent was raised on the spot of the present manor. Built in the faubourg of Agnou, within the fiefdom of the Boutigny family, it stood outside the long walls that enclosed Maule. The Boutignys owned the castle from the 13th century on: first Hugues de Boutigny, Lord of Gavral, then his son Jean de Boutigny. However, it was later dismantled by order of King Lou ...Château Louis XIV
The Château Louis XIV is a château constructed between 2008 and 2011 by the property developer Emad Khashoggi"s property development company COGEMAD using traditional craftsmanship techniques and materials. Located between Versailles and Marly-le-Roi on a 23-hectare walled site, the property is surrounded by moats and has a constructed surface area of 7,000 m2, 5,000 m2 of which are living space. The prop ...Château de Rosny-sur-Seine
The Château de Rosny-sur-Seine was built of bricks and limestone by Maximilien de Béthune, duke of Sully, on the site of an old fortified manor that had been dismantled and burned in 1435. In 1529, the old building passed by marriage to Jean de Béthune, the grandfather of Sully, who was born at the old house, but it was modest by the standards of the day, and he had it replaced in the last years of the 16th century wit ...Featured Historic Landmarks, Sites & Buildings
Historic Site of the week
Palazzo Colonna
The Palazzo Colonna is a palatial block of buildings built in part over ruins of an old Roman Serapeum, and has belonged to the prestigious Colonna family for over twenty generations.
The first part of the palace dates from the 13th century, and tradition holds that the building hosted Dante in his visit to Rome. The first documentary mention notes that the property hosted Cardinal Giovanni and Giacomo Colonna in the 13th century. It was also home to Cardinal Oddone Colonna before he ascended to the papacy as Martin V (1417–1431).
With his passing, the palace was sacked during feuds, and the main property passed into the hands of the Della Rovere family. It returned to the Colonna family when Marcantonio I Colonna married Lucrezia Gara Franciotti Della Rovere, the niece of pope Julius II. The Colonna"s alliance to the Habsburg power, likely protected the palace from looting during the Sack of Rome (1527).
Starting with Filippo Colonna (1578–1639) many changes have refurbished and create a unitary complex around a central garden. Architects including Girolamo Rainaldi and Paolo Marucelli labored on specific projects. Only in the 17th and 18th centuries were the main facades completed. Much of this design was completed by Antonio del Grande (including the grand gallery), and Girolamo Fontana (decoration of gallery). In the 18th century, the long low facade designed by Nicola Michetti with later additions by Paolo Posi with taller corner blocks (facing Piazza Apostoli) was constructed recalls earlier structures resembling a fortification.
The main gallery (completed 1703) and the masterful Colonna art collection was acquired after 1650 by both the cardinal Girolamo I Colonna and his nephew the Connestabile Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna and includes works by Lorenzo Monaco, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Palma the Elder, Salviati, Bronzino, Tintoretto, Pietro da Cortona, Annibale Carracci (painting of The Beaneater), Guercino, Francesco Albani, Muziano and Guido Reni. Ceiling frescoes by Filippo Gherardi, Giovanni Coli, Sebastiano Ricci, and Giuseppe Bartolomeo Chiari celebrate the role of Marcantonio II Colonna in the battle of Lepanto (1571). The gallery is open to the public on Saturday mornings.
The older wing of the complex known as the Princess Isabelle"s apartments, but once housing Martin V"s library and palace, contains frescoes by Pinturicchio, Antonio Tempesta, Crescenzio Onofri, Giacinto Gimignani, and Carlo Cesi. It contains a collection of landscapes and genre scenes by painters like Gaspard Dughet, Caspar Van Wittel (Vanvitelli), and Jan Brueghel the Elder.
Along with the possessions of the Doria-Pamphilij and Pallavacini-Rospigliosi families, this is one of the largest private art collections in Rome.