Angers is a town in western France located on the banks of the
Maine, prefecture of the Maine-et-Loire department in the Pays de la
Loire region. Located on the Paris-Nantes axis, Angers was in 2017
the second most populous municipality in the Pays de la Loire region
and the eighteenth in France with 152,960 inhabitants. In 2017, the
city is the central municipality of the pole of attraction of a
populated area of more than 420,000 inhabitants, an urban unit of
nearly 225,000 inhabitants and an inter-municipality, Angers Loire
Métropole, comprising 29 municipalities and 296,390 inhabitants.
Historical capital and stronghold of Anjou, cradle of the
Plantagenets dynasty, Angers was one of the intellectual centers of
Europe in the 15th century under the reign of "good king René". The
city owes its development as well as its political and historical
role to its position at the level of a geological, hydrographic,
cultural and strategic point of convergence.
Angers stands out today for its specialization
in the field of plants: Végépolys is the leading European
horticultural competitiveness cluster, the city is also home to the
headquarters of the Community Plant Variety Office. Its
universities, museums and cultural activity also make it an
important cultural center which includes the castle of the Dukes of
Anjou built in the thirteenth century which houses the Apocalypse
tapestry, the largest set of medieval tapestries known to date. .
The richness of its heritage has earned it the label of city of art
and history.
The city of Angers is made up of eleven districts:
Lac de
Maine (west of downtown)
Belle-Beille (the university district in
the West)
La Doutre (district located on the west bank of Maine)
Saint-Jacques-Nazareth (in the North-West)
Verneau (in the
North-West)
Monplaisir (north-east of the city center)
Saint-Serge - Place Ney - Chalouère (in the North-East)
Deux
Croix-Banchais (east of the city center)
Justices-Madeleine St
Léonard (South-East of the city center)
La Fayette-Eblé (in the
South)
La Roseraie (to the south)
The Chateau d'Angers, also known as the Chateau of the Dukes of Anjou, is located in the town of Angers in the Maine-et-Loire department of France. The fortress is built on a slate shale promontory which dominates Maine. The site has been occupied since ancient times because of its strategic defensive position. Subsequently, the counts of Anjou set up their homes there, until the end of the Plantagenêt empire which saw the kingdom of France conquer the county of Anjou. Louis IX had the current castle built in the 13th century, while the Dukes of Anjou transformed it into a seigneurial residence in the 15th century. Yolande d'Aragon gave birth to René d'Anjou there. In the 16th century, following the troubles of the Wars of Religion, Henry III ordered the destruction of the castle, but only the upper part of the towers was destroyed. It was subsequently transformed into a prison, then a garrison and ammunition depot during World War II. At the start of the 21st century, it housed the Apocalypse tapestry and was one of the most visited tourist sites in Maine-et-Loire. Its opening to tourism is managed by the Center des monuments nationaux.
The location of the Château d'Angers is strategic
because it is located on the western side of the hill of the Cité,
the highest point in Angers, at 47 meters. The altitude of the
castle oscillates between 35 and 45 meters. It dominates the Maine
which flows at an altitude of about 20 meters. The hill itself is
made up of slate schist whose steepness towards Maine was
accentuated by its extraction in the medieval period.
The
first occupations
In 1997, a cairn was unearthed to the west of
the courtyard, under the remains of the old count castle. Built
around 4500 BC. the cairn consisted of four or five burial chambers.
It is about 17 meters in diameter and is entirely built of slabs of
schist. In addition, the shaping of these plaques reveals the
mastery of slate mining from the Neolithic era4.
The presence
of a Gallic oppidum from the Andecaves tribe on the site was
rejected for a long time in the face of the few clues to support the
assertion. However, the preventive excavation campaign between 1992
and 2003 was finally able to demonstrate the existence of an
occupation at the time of La Tène final (around 80-70 BC) until the
Augustan period ( 10 BC). The presence of archaeological furniture,
the remains of a rampart with horizontal beams and the discovery of
pathways delimiting sectors of activity3 allow us to consider again
the hypothesis of an oppidum on the site of the castle6.
During the Roman occupation, towards the end of the 1st century, the
site was converted into a vast platform of 3,600 m2 surrounded by
buttressed walls, overlooking the Maine. A temple and its satellites
are built there. At the end of the third century, the migrations of
the Germanic peoples brought a growing state of insecurity. The
inhabitants of the region then took refuge in Juliomagus and
surrounded the city with an enclosure 10 to 12 meters high. Part of
the Gallo-Roman ramparts crossed the current castle from west to
east, skirting the old promontory of the 1st century, the buildings
of which were probably destroyed to build the wall. At its western
end, under the gallery of the Apocalypse, at the level of the
Saint-Laud chapel, are the remains of a tower of the urban wall.
There is also a gate referred to as the “Porte de Chanzé”, the
remains of which are buried under the southwestern rampart.
Excavations undertaken between 1992 and 2003 have revealed the
occupation of the site between the 7th and 9th centuries. There are
buildings of a good quality of construction as well as spaces of
crafts and gardens which would correspond to an episcopal residence,
the bishop being mentioned as the owner of the site of the castle in
the middle of the ninth century.
In 851, the bishop of Angers, Dodon, allowed the count of Anjou
to settle on a piece of land, “near the enclosure”. This position
makes it possible to monitor Maine at a time when Angers was
vulnerable to Norman raids. This will not prevent them from taking
over the city on several occasions. At the same time, the Bretons
carried out raids and seized part of the Angevin territory. It was
once the period of unrest and invasions ended that the Counts of
Anjou built what would become the Count's Palace. This one will
never undergo siege and will be very little fortified because the
counts of Anjou will gradually subjugate Poitou, Maine, Normandy and
Aquitaine. It is then mentioned as an aula and not as a castrum.
Consequently, it will consist mainly of residential buildings. The
Great Hall, or aula, was built at the western end of the promontory,
probably on the old antique terrace while a kitchen was supported by
the old Gallo-Roman wall. The Sainte-Geneviève chapel, which serves
the inhabitants of the site, receives towards the end of the ninth
century the relics of Saint Laud, which will ultimately give it
their name. In the tenth century, an oven was built, the bases of
the pipe columns of which were found during excavations of the
count's palace. In the eleventh century, the Great Hall was extended
to the north, going from 300 to 500 m2.
Around the 12th
century, the palace came under the control of the Plantagenets
dynasty. In 1131 or 1132, a fire devastated it. During the
reconstruction, the Great Hall was redeveloped and equipped with the
current door. The apartments continue to evolve towards the north
and south of the courtyard. Finally, the new Saint-Laud chapel is
erected outside the Roman wall on which it rests its north facade.
It is a chapel with a single nave vaulted in a broken barrel, with
only one apse on its southern facade. Anjou was then part of the
Plantagenêt empire, the palace lost its role as a political center
while the Plantagenets sovereigns only occasionally held their court
in Angers. The rooms and homes are deteriorating.
The royal
fortress
In 1214, after the battle of Bouvines and that of La
Roche-aux-Moines, the king of France Philippe Auguste confiscated
Anjou from Jean sans Terre and united the province to the royal
domain, which brought its limits closer to the duchy. of Brittany,
which defends its autonomy in the face of ever more assertive royal
power. The Bretons managed to take Angers in 1227 but were quickly
driven out by the troops of the regent Blanche de Castille and Louis
IX. Blanche began building a royal fortress shortly after. To carry
it out, the canons of Saint-Laud, as well as a part of the
inhabitants of the city were expelled in order to be able to erect a
fortress spread over 2.5 hectares. Almost a quarter of the old
canonical district of Saint-Maurice d'Angers was also destroyed to
allow the expansion of the fortress. For the construction of the
castle, the royal treasury pays more than 5,000 pounds, and a tax is
levied on the bourgeois of Angers. The construction took a dozen
years (1230-1242) which is the birth certificate of the fortress as
it is perceived today: an enclosure over 800 meters long punctuated
by 17 towers. Only the steep northern flank facing the Maine was
never fortified. Louis IX did not stop there since he also decided
to include the city in an urban enclosure.
Anjou will then be
left in prerogative to the brother of Louis IX, Charles I of Sicily.
He will be at the origin of the Capetian dynasty of Anjou. Although
Charles was called by the Pope to Italy, he did not neglect the
fortress, ensuring that it was maintained and improved. It is on the
model of the castle of Angers that he had the Castel Nuovo built in
Naples. His successors left little mark on the castle, which
returned to the royal fold in 1290. Angers then lost its political
role and its homes deteriorated.
The ducal castle
Anjou became a duchy in 1360, a new dynasty,
resulting from the House of Valois, will take place in Angers. Louis
I of Anjou rarely stays there, as does his successor Louis II. Louis
I, however, renovated the Seneschal's accommodation behind the Porte
de la Ville, before 1370, then he rearranged the Great Hall, in
which he drilled new, larger windows and where he installed a
monumental fireplace. He will also build a new kitchen four times
the size of the old count kitchen it adjoins. He entrusted his
accountant architect, Macé-Delarue, with the maintenance and repair
of the castle. His successor, Louis II, will erect the Royal Lodge
around 1410. Yolande d'Aragon, wife of Louis II, had a new chapel
built to house the relic of the True Cross of Anjou, which was
previously housed at the Abbey of La Boissière threatened by the
English. In 1409, she gave birth to her son René in the apartments
of the castle. She also had the castle restored to a state of
defense, in anticipation of the English incursions. In 1443, the
Duke of Somerset, landed in Normandy with 8,000 men, arrived in the
suburbs of Angers. A salvo of artillery fired from the castle kills
one of the captains of Somerset who decides to raise camp and leaves
to besiege the castle of Pouancé. Under the reign of Duke René
d'Anjou, the Royal Lodge has a gallery added. René also had the
châtelet and a series of main buildings built in the 1450s.
Return to royal authority
René d'Anjou ended up coming into
conflict with his nephew the King of France Louis XI over the
inheritance of the duchy. Louis XI decides to seize the duchy by
force and comes to Anjou in 1474 with his army, forcing René to give
up his plan of succession. Louis XI immediately installs a garrison
in the castle and entrusts its command to Guillaume de Cerisay. In
1485, Charles VIII had the ditches re-dug, which until now had been
simply sketched out. Subsequently, Jean Bourré was appointed captain
of the castle and provided it with artillery.
In 1562, it was
decided to adapt the castle to new warfare techniques. The architect
Philibert Delorme is in charge of the plans for the work to be
carried out by Jehan de l'Espine. Artillery terraces are set up to
the south, on the courtyard side, and behind the north rampart,
between the gate and the governor's house, where cannonballs are
embedded. An advanced bastion is built in front of the gate of the
fields. The ditches are once again widened.
In 1585, in the
midst of the religious war, Catholics and Protestants fought over
the castle. Henry III then gave the order to raze him so that
neither party could use it against him. It is up to the governor of
the castle, Donadieu de Puycharic, to carry out the demolition. The
towers are disheveled and the crowning achievement is down. The
demolition is slow: the works are suspended six times, then finally
abandoned at the end of the struggles. The demolition crane will
remain in place until the middle of the 18th century. In 1595, new
artillery terraces were built, then some loopholes were changed into
gunboats.
The castle was still used in 1648 when the
bourgeoisie of Angers revolted against the governor, then again
during La Fronde. The castle was then used as a state prison and
retirement home for invalids. In 1661, Louis XIV ordered d'Artagnan
to arrest Nicolas Fouquet, the superintendent of finance whom the
king suspected of having embezzled twelve million pounds from the
Royal Treasury. After his arrest at the Château de Nantes, Fouquet
was taken to the Château d'Angers where he lived for three weeks.
During the eighteenth century, a modest garrison commanded by a
lieutenant of the king is housed there, the castle begins to suffer
from lack of maintenance.
From the Revolution to today
During the Revolution, in 1789, the castle became the seat of the
Revolutionary Committee of Angers. At the beginning of Messidor Year
I (end of June 1793), the Vendeans, returning from the Virée de
Galerne, unsuccessfully besieged the town and its castle27. The
fortress is then used again as a prison during the Terror and the
wars of Vendée.
In 1806, the demolition of the advanced work of the Porte des
Champs was authorized in order to set up a boulevard. The castle was
converted the following year into a civil and military prison. In
1813, the chapel was cut off by a storey to accommodate two hundred
English sailors prisoners of the Napoleonic wars. Two years later,
after the emperor's definitive defeat, the Prussians occupied the
fortress. It was reoccupied in 1817 by the French army, which
transformed it into an arsenal and a garrison. In 1857, the General
Council became the owner of the castle for the sum of 20,000 francs
but in return had to take care of the maintenance of the historic
parts of the site. The castle was classified as a historic monument
in 1875 while the army degraded the Royal Lodge and the chapel and
set up military constructions.
In 1912, the city of Angers
rented the ditches and developed them into gardens. She placed deer
and hinds there in 1936. Negotiations took place between the army
and the General Directorate of Fine Arts concerning the castle. In
July 1939, negotiations were successful and restoration plans were
drafted. The project was interrupted by World War II. The Germans
occupy the site and store their ammunition there. On May 15 and 16,
1944, the German army evacuated the men present and their
ammunition, for fear of Allied bombardments. Ten days later, on May
25 and 26, Angers suffered its first bombardment. Six bombs fell on
the castle, three of which were inside the walls. A vault of the
chapel collapsed, the Royal Lodge was set on fire, the roofs were
torn off.
In 1945 the reconstruction of the chapel began
under the direction of the architect Bernard Vitry. Light military
constructions are dismantled. In 1948, the gardens were planted and
the castle was opened to the public. The restoration of the chapel
was completed three years later and it was inaugurated by the Bishop
of Angers. In 1952, the decision was taken to build a building to
accommodate the Apocalypse tapestry. This was inaugurated on July
30, 1954. Between 1970 and 1979, the Quai Ligny was progressively
razed by the city in order to create expressways on the left bank of
the banks of Maine and thus clear the view of the walls.
Between 1992 and 2003, a series of preventive archaeological
excavations was carried out by AFAN then INRAP as part of the
renovation of the gallery of the Apocalypse. These excavations make
it possible in particular to bring to light the remains of the
Count's palace, as well as the remains of Neolithic, Gallic and
Roman occupations. In 2007, the reception and ticketing area was
redesigned. In February 2009, a new reception area for the Galerie
de l'Apocalypse was set up. This includes a shop and a glazed space
to present the Neolithic cairn and the remains of the chambers of
the Count's Palace.
On January 10, 2009, around 4:00 p.m., a
fire ravaged the Royal Lodge. It would be due to a malfunction of an
electric heater. Thanks to the responsiveness of the employees, the
precious tapestries are protected and no work is damaged. The roof
of the building, however, was destroyed: the damage was estimated at
2 million euros. The Minister of Culture, Christine Albanel,
declares that the reconstruction of the damaged building is planned
for the second quarter of 200932. Finally, the work will last three
years for a budget three times higher. The fire not only destroyed
the roof, but the freezing of the extinguishing water the following
days greatly damaged all the masonry which had to be changed in
large part. In addition, the buildings of France took the
opportunity to make the monument accessible to people with reduced
mobility by installing an elevator.
From October 2009 to
January 2010, the castle hosts the international exhibition
“Splendor of illumination. King René and the books ”, organized for
the 600th anniversary of the birth of King René. This exhibits 47
illuminated manuscripts and leaflets, 23 of which are exhibited for
the first time in France. The exhibition enabled the chateau to
attract 190,000 visitors in 2009, the record for the number of
admissions over a year, making it one of the most visited sites in
Maine-et-Loire. In June 2012, the renovation of the royal residence
was completed, and the ground floor is open to visitors pending the
installation of a scenography in 2014. This opens in October 2014,
putting an end to the restoration work.
Architecture
The general exterior appearance of the fortress dates almost
entirely from the time of Louis IX and monumentally evokes the
military role of the castle. On the other hand, the interior and
buildings of the court, later, built between Louis I of Anjou and
King René, recall the residential role of the court of Anjou between
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
The Champs gate
The Porte des Champs was the link between the castle and the outside
of the city. It is the most attractive architectural element of the
castle. Its exterior facing is covered with tufa on two thirds. The
last third alternates between layers of tuffeau and layers of
schist.
Two towers flank a carriage door, which gave access
by a dormant walkway, then by a drawbridge which had to be operated
by a single chain from an opening above the door.
The defense
of the gate was made in the first place by a series of arches
arranged in staggered rows on the four floors of each of the towers.
Some of these archers will be taken and transformed into gunboats.
In the seventeenth or eighteenth century, two of these gunboats were
adorned with small semicircular balconies with corbels.
The
entrance was then guarded by a series of four archers (two on each
side) which ended at the entrance itself. The latter was then
defended by a double harrow system, all reinforced with a stunner
between the two. The current harrow is an original wooden harrow
with iron-reinforced hoofs, probably dating from the
fifteenth-sixteenth century. Finally, a door, of which there is a
hinge and traces of the closing bar, reinforced this extremely
well-defended entrance.
Set back from the entrance is a
vaulted thirteenth century room which supported the guard rooms and
on which now stands the Governor's House. The interior of the towers
is made up of three ribbed vaulted rooms resting on six bases. These
are more elaborate than on the other towers of the fortress and
represent faces or plant motifs.
For the 600th anniversary of
King René, the Ateliers Perrault Frères built a temporary footbridge
for the occasion reminiscent of the past of the Château d'Angers.
The city gate
The city gate once provided communication
between the castle and the city. Less careful construction than the
Porte des Champs, it is mainly made up of schist and punctuated by
chains of tufa. The city gate has two circular towers that flank the
entrance passage. This passage was altered in the fifteenth or
sixteenth century in order to be able to fit two drawbridges: one,
with a double arrow, for the cart passage, the other for the
pedestrian crossing.
Its defense was similar to the Porte des
Champs. The traces of two harrows between which was installed a
stunner are still marked. Several archers protect the entrance, some
of which have been converted into gunboats.
Behind the door
were the guard rooms, supported by an arched passage. These rooms
were remodeled by Louis I.
The enclosure and the towers
The fortress built by Saint Louis in 1230 includes seventeen towers
erected with alternating shale and tufa layers. They are about
thirty meters high, about eighteen meters wide and interconnected.
An eighteenth tower previously existed, outside the enclosure,
towards Maine, the Guillon tower. It was used to supply the castle.
The Guillon Tower was demolished in 1832. The massive ramparts built
from 1230 to 1240 at the instigation of Saint Louis have a
circumference of about 800 m long. In all, an area of 25,000 m2 is
covered by the fortress. On the north side, the steepness of the
plateau is such that the architects did not consider it necessary to
complete the defenses.
The ditches-gardens
The ditches
were dug from the construction of the fortress during the reign of
Saint Louis. To the south, they then separated the castle - built on
the hill of the same name - from the suburb of Esvière. To the
north, they imposed the limit between the City and the castle. They
were enlarged in the 14th and then in the 16th century. Two wells
are located there: one to the east, the other to the north. Although
the Maine passes at the foot of the castle, there was never any
question of filling the ditches with water, mainly because of the
uneven terrain.
Under King René, the ditches would have been
transformed into contests for the conduct of the tournaments that
the duke appreciated so much. In the 18th century, the ditches
housed gardens and vegetable plots. The city of Angers became the
tenant of the ditches in 1912. From 1936 to 1999, hinds and deer
settled there. Today the ditches have been turned into gardens.
The inner courtyard
The inner courtyard was divided into two
parts. The organization of the buildings constructed between the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries divides the interior of the
fortress between the poultry yard, or garrison court, and the
seigneurial court, delimited by the Royal Lodge, the chapel, the
châtelet, and 'other buildings that have disappeared (common areas,
kitchens) now replaced by the gallery of the Apocalypse.
The
big room
The Great Hall of the Château d'Angers dates from the
earliest stages of the Count's Palace in the ninth century. It is an
aula, a ceremonial hall where the county power is exercised. The
first room, vast of 300 m2, is enlarged towards the eleventh century
to finally reach 500 m23. In the 12th century, around 1130, probably
after the fire of 1131, the Great Hall was reorganized by piercing
small semicircular bays and piercing the current door, also
semicircular, decorated with broken sticks. The old Carolingian aula
was once again modified towards the end of the fourteenth century:
large windows with mullions and double braces are pierced, fitted
with cushions. Between these large windows are small bays forming an
alternation. A monumental fireplace is set up. The 12th century gate
is still preserved. Accounts dating from 1370 mention, on the Maine
side, the fitting out of windows and fireplaces.
Saint-Laud
chapel
A chapel under the name of Sainte-Geneviève probably
already existed on the site before the end of the ninth century
since around this time, it received the relics of the bishop of
Coutance, Laud, who gave it its name of Saint-Laud.
Around
1060, the count of Anjou Geoffroy Martel created a chapter of canons
to provide worship. The chapel was destroyed for the first time at
the beginning of the 12th century, rebuilt and consecrated by the
bishop of Angers Renaud de Martigné on June 8, 1104. It was again
destroyed in the fire of 1131 and rebuilt by Henri II Plantagenêt.
Although partially buried by the reconstruction of the castle of
Saint Louis, it served as a chapel for the castle until the
fourteenth century, when it was replaced by the new chapel built by
Yolande d'Aragon.
The remains of the chapel were discovered
in 1953, during the earthworks of the gallery of the Apocalypse. The
current Sainte-Geneviève-Saint-Laud chapel is a 12th century chapel
built overhanging the Maine but outside the 13th century enclosure.
It measures five by fifteen meters and was covered with a stone
barrel vault and semicircular arch. Columns with carved capitals
still remain on the north wall. It is now visible overhanging at the
end of the gallery of the Apocalypse.
The Royal Lodge
The
Royal Lodge was built by Louis II of Anjou, around 1410. At the
time, the buildings extended as far as the Maine side to return to
the Great Hall, thus enclosing the courtyard. Only the dwelling
adjacent to the chapel remains today.
The chapel
Inside
the castle, stands the chapel built at the request of Yolande
d'Aragon, wife of Louis II of Anjou. Its construction began in 1405
and ended in 1413. It is dedicated to Saint John the Baptist. With
its single rectangular nave and its three angel vault bays, it bears
witness to the architectural style of Angevin Gothic. The building,
wide (22.85 meters long and 11.90 meters wide) and not very high
(14.90 meters under vaults) presents at the beginning of the
fifteenth century, a decoration typical of international Gothic
(prismatic ribs, base in bottle). The three keystones are finely
carved: the first represents the arms of Louis II and Yolande, the
second is adorned with the crowned shield of Louis II. The key of
the third vault represents a cross with double crosses, symbol of
the True cross of Anjou, reliquary owned by the house of Anjou and
present on its coat of arms and which was exposed in the chapel
between 1412 and 1456. The current doors of the Gothic-style chapel
are the original doors.
On the south face was placed the
seigneurial oratory, or seigneurial loggia. This one, built under
Yolande, was taken over by René who improved it by adding a triple
tri-foliated arch giving a view of the altar. The oratory is adorned
on the side of the chapel with stone decorations and moldings, all
the salient ornaments were however destroyed during the military
occupation of the building. Only the negative traces remain today.
It was accessed either through an exterior door or through the
chapel. A fireplace, the flue of which was concealed by a buttress
and a pinnacle, allowed the room to be heated.
The lighting is mainly provided by the canopy of the flat
bedside, facing east. Each bay is pierced with two windows, one to
the north, the other to the south. The original stained glass
windows have been destroyed. However, one can still find in the
southern glass roof of the first bay the remains of a 15th century
stained glass window originally belonging to the Abbey of Louroux.
Transported in 1812 to the church of Vernante, it was donated in
1901 to the Archaeological Museum and reassembled in the chapel of
the former Saint-Jean d'Angers hospital. It finally returned to the
chapel of the castle in 1951. It represents King René and his wife
Jeanne de Laval on their knees, in prayer, framing the Virgin.
King René's gallery
The King René Gallery was built between
the years 1435 and 1453 by Duke René d'Anjou. It is made up of four
gables, each separated by a buttress. Under each gable were fitted
two windows for the lighting of the two floors of the gallery,
served to the south-east by a staircase. The architects of the Duke
of Anjou, Jean Gendrot and André Robin, created a largely glazed
facade that was unusual in the fifteenth century. The gallery is
fifteen meters long and three meters wide. Of the fifteen meters in
length, eight meters thirty are open in eleven glazed windows. The
four vaults of the four bays on the ground floor are preserved with
their key carved but scratched since. The ribs fell on the pellets
which were destroyed. The first floor is in a better state of
preservation, the fallout of the ribs and the bases with foliage
decorations still being in place. The keystones are emblazoned, one
representing the coat of arms of René d'Anjou, while another
represents the double cross known as the “Anjou Cross”. The wooden
frames have been restored from old models. At the end of the
gallery, a walled door testifies to the buildings extending from the
house which have since disappeared.
The staircase was placed
in the corner return formed between the chapel and the royal
residence, and serves the first and second floors of the residence.
It also provides access to the attic of the chapel. The top of the
staircase is covered with a palm vault made up of sixteen quarters
of vaults separated by prismatic ribs. At each crossing of the ribs
is a key bearing for six of them two letters of the motto of King
René: EN. DI. EU. IN. SO. IT ("In God, be it"). The seventh key is
erased and the eighth represents a sun. The ribs fall on cul-de-lamp
capitals adorned with foliage.
When using the castle as
barracks and prison, the gallery is covered by a sloping roof, the
bays are walled up and inside the spans are divided by tufa walls.
The pediments having disappeared, the restoration work restored
them, as well as the slope of the original roof.
The
construction of the gallery and the staircase thus allows
independent access to the rooms of the Logis which were previously
controlled. It also allows to have a double access and an opening on
the housing of the Sénéchal d'Anjou and on the north courtyard where
the festivals and ceremonies were held.
The châtelet
The
châtelet is the portal of entry into the stately courtyard. It was
built by Duke René d'Anjou and finished in 1456. It is the work of
the Angevin architect Guillaume Robin.
Above the passage, it
consists of two floors served by a staircase turret. The châtelet is
flanked by three overhanging turrets supported by buttresses and
topped with a pepper-roof, as in the châtelet of the castle of
Saumur. These are offset from the gable of the building, giving it
an asymmetrical appearance. The isolated pepper shakers of the main
roof are the result of a modification made during construction. The
entrance porch has a lowered arch surmounted by an archivolt with
braces and croisettes. Towards the interior of the courtyard, it has
a pointed arch with curly archivolt and crosses but one side of
which rests on a capital while the other descends to the ground. The
building is constructed alternately with a schist and tufa
apparatus, using only limestone for the projecting elements
(turrets, angles, frames). The arms of Duke René d'Anjou are
engraved on the outer gable in a tufa coat of arms.
The interior consists of a floor and attics converted into
housing. The first floor will be inhabited in particular by René's
son, Jean II de Lorraine, then will be mentioned as a prison in
1707.
The governor's house
The current home dates from the
18th century, the two wings framing a staircase tower dating from
the end of the 15th century or the beginning of the 16th century.
During the construction of the current homes, a large bay window was
drilled outside the wall, on the east side. The house has four rooms
upstairs. In the second, the windows have been arranged in baffles
in order to optimize the lighting and leave no dark angles. The
house also has an attic storey with windows topped with straight
pediments.
The gallery of the Apocalypse
The gallery was
built between 1953 and 1954 by the chief architect of Historic
Monuments Bernard Vitry to accommodate the eponymous wall hanging.
It measures nine meters high, being slightly buried so as not to
exceed the height of the ramparts. The gallery is set at right
angles and is part of the layout of the old buildings which closed
the seigneurial courtyard. The first part is 40 meters long, the
second 56. In order to harmonize with the surrounding constructions,
visible shale rubble covers the entire facades. Inside, the gallery
follows the bulge of the towers of the enclosure.
The
Apocalypse tapestry has been kept there since 1954, however the
large windows that let the sun and moon rays through degrade the
colors. Curtains were installed in 1975, then hanging bars to avoid
contact between the hanging and the wall in 1980. First presented on
a red background, this was replaced in 1982 by a beige background,
then in 1996, during the redevelopment of the gallery, with a dark
blue background. A constant temperature and a subdued light is put
in place to limit the alteration of the colors.
Tourism
Reception and management
The Château d'Angers is managed by the
Center des monuments nationaux, which in 2011 employed 28 people.
Its administrator in 2017 is Henri Yannou. He succeeds Patricia
Corbett (2011-2014), Antoine Lataste (2009-2011) and Gérard Cieslik
(2006-2009).
The visit is free, with visit documents in nine
languages or audio guides. Guided tours of the Apocalypse tapestry
are offered every day.
A restaurant, the Logis du Gouverneur,
is located inside the enclosure. The site also has a boutique area
open since February 2009 at the reception of the Galerie de
l'Apocalypse.