Château Saint-Maire ('Saint-Maire Castle') was built from 1397 to 1425 by the Bishops of Lausanne to serve as their fortified residence. Begun under Guillaume of Menthonay, it was completed under his successor, Guillaume of Challant, and named after Saint Marius, the first Bishop of Lausanne. It served as the bishop's residence until 1536, when Bern captured Lausanne and secularized the bishopric (the bishop, Sébastien of Montfalcon, escaped through a hidden stairwell). The Bernese installed a bailiff in the château and used it as an armory. Upon the creation of the canton of Vaud in 1803, it became seat of the cantonal government, a role it has retained.
The château was built as a single massive rectangular block, as was common at the time, with brick for the upper portion and sandstone for the lower portion. It originally had Ghibelline merlons, which gave it a somewhat Italian appearance, but due to the wet climate, the roof was extended and the merlons filled, probably in the 16th century. The windows that form a row just below the eaves fill the gaps between the merlons, and the arches above the windows fill the v-shaped openings in the Ghibelline style of merlon.
In 1789, the Bernese built an annex on the west side of the castle, through which it is now entered. A tower that formerly stood next to the château was demolished in 1890, and around the same time, a statue of Abraham Davelwas installed against the front wall.
References:The Pilgrimage Church of Wies (Wieskirche) is an oval rococo church, designed in the late 1740s by Dominikus Zimmermann. It is located in the foothills of the Alps in the municipality of Steingaden.
The sanctuary of Wies is a pilgrimage church extraordinarily well-preserved in the beautiful setting of an Alpine valley, and is a perfect masterpiece of Rococo art and creative genius, as well as an exceptional testimony to a civilization that has disappeared.
The hamlet of Wies, in 1738, is said to have been the setting of a miracle in which tears were seen on a simple wooden figure of Christ mounted on a column that was no longer venerated by the Premonstratensian monks of the Abbey. A wooden chapel constructed in the fields housed the miraculous statue for some time. However, pilgrims from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and even Italy became so numerous that the Abbot of the Premonstratensians of Steingaden decided to construct a splendid sanctuary.