Château d'Anet
The Anet castle is a French castle in the Renaissance style in Anet near Dreux in the Eure -et -Loir, 65 kilometers west of Paris.
The castle was built from 1547 to 1555 by order of Henry II built the made it his mistress Diane de Poitiers as a gift. The architect was Philibert Delorme.
The castle was used as a filming location for the 1965 James Bond film Thunderball.
History of the estate
Anet and his castle enter the time of King Philip II in history. In the Louvre there are letters which King Philip II in 1192 to write Anet, where he freed the inhabitants Anets who were under his direct jurisdiction of all taxes and duties. Under his successors then Anet belonged to the royal domain. 1317 Philip V gave dominion over Anet Ludwig, Count of Évreux as appanage. In Ludwig, who died in 1319, succeeded by his son Philip, who in 1328 when Philip III. King of Navarre was, and his son Charles the Bad, the Navarre ascended the throne in 1349. Karl turn gave the rule Anet as an appanage to his younger brother Ludwig, Count of Beaumont- le- Roger, but soon mortgaged it King Charles V for 50,000 florins. After the childless death of Louis confiscated Charles V Anet and had the castle largely torn down. 1404 joined Charles III. of Navarre and the counties of Evreux and Mantes also the rule Anet finally starting to the king. 1447 Charles VII, in turn, rewarded his Großseneschall Normandy, Pierre de Brézé, Count of Maulévrier, for the expulsion of the English from this province, by giving him Anet fief (see also: House Brézé ). Pierre de Brézé fell in 1446 at the Battle of Montlhery, was succeeded by his son Jacques de Brézé, who had married in 1462 Charlotte de Valois, the illegitimate daughter of Charles VII with Agnès Sorel. He was succeeded by his son Louis de Brézé, who married Diane de Poitiers in 1514. When Louis died in 1531, Diane was 32 years old; she kept Anet until her death in 1566 1535, she became the mistress of the future King Henry II, who made her after his accession in 1547 great gifts. , the Château de Chenonceau, the title of Duchess of Valentinois, and the construction of the castle Anet, for he undertook the best craftsmen of the time: the architect Philibert Delorme, the sculptor Jean Goujon and the painter Jean Cousin.
With Diane's death Anet went to her daughter Louise de Brézé, Duchess of Aumale, then ( she died in 1577) to their son Charles de Lorraine ( † 1631). King Henry III. Anet rose in February 1583 with the Principality. When Charles de Lorraine rebelled against King Henry IV, Anet was confiscated and given to Marie de Luxembourg, Duchess of Mercœur, who was one of Charles ' creditors. Marie gave Anet in 1592 her only daughter, Marie- Françoise de Lorraine, the 1609 César, Duke of Vendôme married, the illegitimate son of Henry IV and Gabrielle d' Estrées. After the death of César 1665 Anet passed to his son Louis, then in 1669 to his grandson, Louis -Joseph de Vendôme, of the Principality of Anet his wife Marie -Anne de Bourbon- Condé, Mademoiselle d' Enghien called ( 1678-1718 ), gave. After her death in 1718 Anet fell to her sister Anne -Louise Bénédicte de Bourbon, Duchesse du Maine ( 1676-1753 ), the 1750, the Principality and the County of Dreux her son, Louis Auguste de Bourbon, prince de Dombes gave. Louis Auguste died in 1756, he was succeeded by Louis Charles de Bourbon, Count of Eu, the Anet to King Louis XV. sold, but the usufruct held until his death in 1775. In the same year King Louis XVI went. Anet of Louis Jean Marie de Bourbon, duc de Penthièvre, from. The Duke of Penthièvre died in 1793 and was the last owner of Anet.
Castle of the 16th century
The castle is one of the major works of the architect Philibert Delorme. He had, however, when he ( in December 1547 at the latest) began in Anet, already found foundations of the corps de logis. Large parts of the plant were demolished in the early 19th century. The existing remains are no longer consistently in their original condition, as in the 17th century under Louis -Joseph de Vendôme extensive remodeling of the entire system and the castle itself were carried out. You Cerceau 's drawings, woodcuts in Delorme's ' Architecture and the vista of J. Rigaud from the 18th century providing a picture of the work of Delorme.
The residential and commercial buildings of the castle were arranged around three adjacent farms. Behind it stretched across the entire width of a regularly arranged garden. Walls with corner pavilions and a moat surrounded the whole plant. The middle courtyard enclosed the three wings of the residential buildings. The side wings added onto the garden into two square pavilions on, which were connected by a terrace at the height of the ground floor; under it there is a cryptoporticus. The southern end of the main court is in the middle of a projecting portal system, reached by a bridge over the moat. A chapel is the center of the east wing. About the eastern moat leads to the Porte Charles le Mauvais - a second access to the castle. Upstream from the outside An orangery north of the garden, a ballroom in the East, bird houses, a heron stand and the northern garden wall in the central axis, the large hall, from which one could climb to swim in the ditch. In the garden and courtyards on each side stood great fountain from which the Fontaine de Diane are particularly known in the western courtyard. My main jewelry was traditionally Jean Goujon attributed Diana with the deer. Outside the castle district Diane had a poor hospital and a grave chapel ( 1566/77, without the participation Delorme, yet received ) build.
Today's state
The chateau in Anet is preserved only in fragments today. At the cour d' honneur is still the left wing, which was also considerably altered in the 17th century. The central projection of the main building on the north side was removed in the 19th century and erected by thoroughgoing " restoration " in the courtyard of the Ecole des Beaux -Arts in Paris again. The chapel was set before a new facade. Relatively undamaged, the Porte Charles -le- Mauvais, the southern building of the Eastern court, the corner pavilion in the southwest, and the average entrance, although it lost a part of the decoration here. The cryptoporticus is only preserved as a ruin.
The interior facade of the west wing gives us an idea of the two-storey elevation system of the Cour d' honneur ( if you let the transformation of the two middle window axes from the 18th century except eight) and the simple treatment of the individual elements held in low relief. In his architecture, he founded the preference of the interior spaces towards the facades for decorative design. The three floors of the central projection are limited by coupled columns and indeed in the classic sequence Doric, jonisch, Corinthian, as it corresponds to the models that Delorme had studied in Italy. However, the emphasis on middle and rich decorative design corresponds older French tradition. Also other construction details are reminiscent of late medieval habits: maßwerkähnliche balustrade ornaments, reticulated vault and forms of exchange between stone and brick masonry.
The portal system is a free modification of the triumphal arch scheme. In the arch placed Delorme 1551-1555 the relief of a nymph with the deer, one of the major works of Benvenuto Cellini, which, originally intended for Fontainebleau, is now located in the Louvre. The watch floor is crowned by an ensemble of a deer, and four dogs of his time with barking and movements accompanied the hour strike. The different types of stones and metals from which the gate was built, gave the whole a colorful, magnificent appearance.
The cruciform ground plan of the chapel is inscribed in a circle. The consequent convex outer walls have led to the assumption of an influence on the German baroque architecture. For the coffers of the dome, ascend the spiral ribs in spatial curves and form diamond-shaped fields, an antique model can specify the Delorme has known sure the half-domes of the Temple of Venus and Roma in the Roman Forum.
The Porte Charles le Mauvais - emphasized by their heavy coherence and rigor most likely the fortification character of the plant. Yet was abandoned in Anet not to the expression of the princely privilege of fixing, even though she could no longer fulfill its original task.
Two topics specific figurative and ornamental decoration of the palace complex: 1 There are occasionally references to the building owner in direct and indirect ways, in addition to their initials also mythological representations of Diana as goddess of the hunt or their attributes such as crescent, quiver, arrow and bow. 2 The references to the mourning for her late husband are the former statue in a niche of the central projection and the preference of black materials or the use of sakophagähnlichen chimney essays.
Chapel Anet
Portal system with a copy of " Diana of Fontainebleau "
Sculpture by Diana fountain in the western courtyard
Monogram of Diane de Poitiers in the castle of Anet