Catherine De' Medici's Building Projects - Chenonceau

Chenonceau

In 1576, Catherine decided to enlarge her château of Chenonceau, near Blois. On Henry II's death, she had demanded this property from Henry's mistress Diane de Poitiers. She had not forgotten that Henry had given this crown property to Diane instead of to her. In return, she gave Diane the less prized Chaumont. When Diane arrived at Chaumont, she found signs of the occult, such as pentangles drawn on the floor. She quickly withdrew to her château of Anet and never set foot in Chaumont again.

Diane had carried out major works at Chenonceau, such as de l'Orme's bridge over the Cher River. Now Catherine set out to efface or outdo her former rival's work. She lavished vast sums on the house and built two galleries on the extension over the bridge. The architect was almost certainly Bullant. The decorations show the fantasy of his late style.

Catherine loved gardens and often conducted business in them. At Chenonceau, she added waterfalls, menageries, and aviaries, laid out three parks, and planted mulberry trees for silkworms. Jacques Androuet du Cerceau made drawings of a grandiose scheme for Chenonceau. A trapezoidal lower court leads to a forecourt of semicircular atria joined to two halls that flank the original house. These drawings may not be a reliable record of Bullant's plans. Du Cerceau "sometimes inserted in his book designs embodying ideas which he himself would have liked to see carried out rather than those of the actual designer of the building in question".

Jacques Androuet du Cerceau was a favourite architect of Catherine's. Like Bullant, he became a more fantastical designer with time. Nothing he built himself, however, has survived. He is known instead for his engravings of the leading architectural schemes of the day, including Saint-Maur, the Tuileries, and Chenonceau. In 1576 and 1579, he produced the two-volume Les Plus Excellents Bastiments de France, a beautiful publication dedicated to Catherine. His work is an invaluable record of buildings that were never finished or were later substantially altered.