Saint-Michel-de-Montaigne · Dordogne
The park, terraces and garden gate of Montaigne
The château where Michel de Montaigne was born and wrote the Essais keeps its park with walls and terraces, the garden gate and the avenue to the village, all listed in 2009 around the classified Tour de la Librairie.
From the source
Château de Montaigne is a château at Saint-Michel-de-Montaigne, Dordogne, in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region of France. The recorded building campaigns date from the 16th and 17th centuries. Its architecture is recorded as Renaissance Revival architecture. It is protected as a monument historique at the higher of the two levels (classé). Details are drawn from the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture.
Editorial reading
Rebuilt entirely in 1884 after several fires, the château has kept only the Tour de la Librairie from the old house: a round tower with the chapel where Montaigne had his children baptised, his bedroom, a small study with traces of painting, and the library where the fifty-six maxims he had painted on the oak beams survive. That tower, with its adjoining terrace and balustrade, was classified in 1952. The 2009 listing extends to the château, its court, the old mill, the parcels of the park around the house with their walls and terraces, the garden gate and the avenue leading to the village.
Recommendation
The terrace beside the tower is the one place where Montaigne’s own view has not been rebuilt.
Sources
Base Mérimée — immeubles protégés · PA00082876 — Licence Ouverte / Open Licence 2.0 (Etalab) — Ministère de la Culture, base Mérimée
Wikimedia Commons · https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/St%20Michel%20de%20Montaigne%20Ch%C3%A2teau01.jpg — CC BY-SA 4.0
The château by this garden
Discover the architecture and history of this place at Le Roi du Château.
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