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Azay-le-Rideau built from 1518 to 1527, is one of the earliest French Renaissance chateaux. Built on an island in the Indre River, its foundations rise straight out of the river (iullustration, right).
Beginning in 1513, Gilles Berthelot, the state treasurer of Francois I, built on this already-fortified site that was partly his wife's inheritance, but it was she, Philippe Lesbahy, who directed the course of the works, including the novel idea of a central staircase (escalier d'honneur) that is Azay's greatest innovation. When Berthelot was suspected of collusion in embezzlement he was forced to flee from incomplete Azay-le-Rideau in 1528; he never saw Azay again. Eventually it was taken over by the French state.
The long low proportions and the sculptural decorations of Azay are Italianate, in the new antique taste, but the bastion corners capped by pointed cones, the vertical stacks of grouped windows separated by emphatic horizontal string courses, and the high sloped slate roof are unmistakably French. The playful fortifications and the medieval donjon towers gave an air of traditional nobility to the king's newly-ennobled treasurer.
The central staircase is the main feature a visitor meets with upon entering. It is embodied within the building, rather than rising helically, partly embedded in the wall and visible from outside, in the French way that is familiar at the Chateau de Blois.
The sculptural details at Azay are particularly remarkable. On the ground floor, fluted pilasters on high bases support the salamander and the ermine, emblems of Francois I and Claude de France.
The Romantic generation rediscovered the appeal of Azay-le-Rideau. Honoré de Balzac called it "a facetted diamond set in the Indre." ("Un diamant taillé ŕ facettes, serti par l'Indre.") Now Azay-le-Rideau is surrounded by a distinctly 19th century parklike English landscape garden with many specimen trees, especially exotic conifers: Atlas cedar, Bald Cypress and Sequoias from the New World.
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