Pierre de Montfaucon built the Château de Saint-Mesmin around 1370. In the Middle Ages, the castle was surrounded by water moats. The Montfaucon family fortified the castle by adding the imposing keep crowned with a walkway. It is then accessed by a drawbridge.
This castle was besieged only once in the Middle Ages. Later it was besieged during the French Revolution in 1796. Today Château de Saint-Mesmin is open to the public.
The Villa d'Este is a 16th-century villa in Tivoli, near Rome, famous for its terraced hillside Italian Renaissance garden and especially for its profusion of fountains: the extraordinary system contains fifty-one fountains and nymphaeums, 398 spouts, 364 water jets, 64 waterfalls, and 220 basins, fed by 875 meters of canals, channels and cascades, and all working entirely by the force of gravity, without pumps. It is now an Italian state museum, and is listed as a UNESCO world heritage site.
Tivoli had been a popular summer residence since ancient Roman times due to its altitude, cooler temperatures and its proximity to the Villa Hadriana, the summer residence of the Emperor Hadrian I.
The Villa was commissioned by Cardinal Ippolito II d'Este (1509-1572), second son of Alfonso I d'Este, the Duke of Ferrara and grandson of Pope Alexander VI, along with Lucrezia Borgia.