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Castle of Bagnols | 69620 Bagnols | France
Such: +33 4 74 71 40 00 | Fax: +33 4 74 71 40 49 |
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The history of the Castle of Bagnols is closely related to the radiation of the town of Lyon at the time of the Rebirth. The castle crossed four distinct periods:
The medieval era first of all, when a defensive fortress was set up of 1217 to 1221 by an ally of the archbishop of Lyon of the name of Guichard D' Oingt. The three original round towers connected by thick walls are surrounded by deep ditches. Spoil which they will generate will be used to raise a terrace directed in the south from which all the valley around could be supervised. The Farmyard will make it possible to offer a refuge to the villagers at the time of the enemy attacks.
After the One hundred Year old War, period at the time which the Castle remained the possession of the royalist families of Albon and Balzac, Médicis arrived at Lyon. They contributed since 1446 to make of Lyon the commercial and banking capital of France. Towards the end of the century, the peaceful prosperity of the city had led it to radiate as well on the cultural level as artistic. During this time, in Bagnols, one bored openings to shooting in the northern tower, and one decorated the residential apartments of murals, of which one, imitating a tent, survived until our days.
An owner of Bagnols became the image of the new Lyons identity, Geoffroy de Balzac, cultivated man, adviser and chamberlain of Charles VIII. The royal visit of Charles is commemorated in the Room of the Guards (today restaurant) by the ecu of France which appears above the monumental Gothic chimney, considered to be largest of the country. It is decorated musicians, angels carrying armorial bearings and planks of foliage retained by mouths of monsters.
The following year, Geoffroy married the girl of Jean Léviste, magistrate Lyons, who made carry out the series of the tapestries of the Lady to the Unicorn currently presented to the museum from Cluny to Paris. Before dying in 1509, Geoffroy made rebuild the Farmyard and girdle the garden of a punctuated wall of small decorative towers. Peace having generated confidence, it made bore large windows in the walls external of the castle and perforate the interior court of mullioned windows.
The Rebirth makes in Bagnols appears of second and glorious time. The Lyons industry and trade, in particular in the field of silk, had conferred on the city a famous position in Europe of the Rebirth. Enormous fortunes were made up and the coldly enriched merchants and anoblis, new aristocrats commercial, undertook the acquisition of the grounds belonging to the lords of the Middle Ages on the decline.
One of these merchants, Jean Camus, Burgundian rice, almond importer and other food products became one of most important the notable Lyoneses. It contributed to the development of the industry of silk, became adviser and secretary of the king, and married a Lyons young girl resulting from an aristocratic family of old stock. Jean acquired of Bagnols in 1566, and by doing this, became the first of the three generations of Camus which were to live there. They added defenses to him - the porch and its drawbridge, the harrow and the imposing girded principal door of a punt bandage with suction face in staircase.
They also equipped the Large Living room with a ceiling supported by carved consoles. It is with the Dugué family on three generations, that it returned to grant Bagnols its greater splendours, of 1619 to 1711. Gaspard Dugué, appointed Trésorier of France in 1614 dedicated part of its fortune growing with the purchase of the castle, the five close villages, and the revenue in oats, wheat, rye, barley, oil, chickens, hens and ruails as well as the rights and duties seigneuriaux .
Gaspard Dugué was the first owner of Bagnols to set it up in principal residence, and the frame profited largely from this preference. Bagnols then became a residence aristocratic, at just a day of horse of Lyon, ideal for the holidays and the celebration of the great events.
Many changes were essential. A fixed bridge at the entry East was built, so that fit with body them can enter the interior court and deposit their passengers under the arched loggia (from now on kitchen). Inside, the big rooms were reorganized and equipped with anterooms and cabinets, accessible by a staircase. A main staircase led to the parts reserved for the ceremonies. An arcade with Italian added on the first floor opened on the court. The parts were decorated with ostentation: murals, tended beds of taffeta, braided serge and embroideries, furnished with tables in drowning and convenient. In winter, the walls were tightened tapestries of Flandres, of Rouen or Bergamo, and fires were lit in the hearth.
The murals from now on famous are most important and of an unequalled quality in a French provincial castle. With the few other specimens which survive in the area, they testify to the existence of a specific Lyons school, inspired by textile industries of the city, known under the name of Large Factory of Lyon , whose velvets, silk trade and Damas exceeded those coming from Italy or of the East.
Of the same paintings invoices created in Grigny for the family of Blackbird, friend of Dugué, suggest that the Lyons craftsmen worked in the capacity as itinerant decorators. They worked with celerity, directly drawing their inspiration from the last reasons for the Lyons fabrics which they mingled with Renaissance influences extracted from works on the prints.
In Bagnols, the majority of the rooms are decorated with light bright colors and reasons coming from the Large Factory of Lyon. The painters equipped for example the Apartment with the Bouquets with walls of a tender punctuated apricot of sowing and bouquets of flower. Framed columns around whose vine branches are rolled up, the whole of this creation represents a terrace with columns opening on a landscape strewn with flowers. In the apartment Geoffroy de Balzac , the grotesque ones presented in planks are of Italian inspiration, with cartridges, arabesques and monkeys grimaçant in mirrors. A room of the second stage, at the origin family vault, offers arcades in trompe-l'oeil putting in scene the life of Hierosme Saint. Y also appear the armorial bearings of Dugué.
The third period of the castle opened in 1711 by its acquisition by Joseph-Barthelemy Hessler, young man 35 year old originating in Frankfurt come to be established in Lyon. Spendthrift of its money so much for maintenance than the decoration of the castle (ten years will be necessary to the repair of the roofs), it made destroy certain useless fortifications from now on and equipped it with a refrigerator, of an overhung regular garden of a large terrace. Inside, the Room of the guards was decorated with columns in trompe-l'oeil framing the four seasons with palmettes and shells radiant, in tons pale in vogue at the 18th century.
The completion of the century saw declining the glory of Bagnols. Its owners expressed little interest for the castle and the parcelling out of its grounds reduced its income. At the time of a short start, the Large Living room was decorated with cartridges in trompe-l'oeil and illustrations of the Metamorphoses of Ovide, while the adjacent Living room of Hunting was painted of a scene of hunting in forest inspired of engravings dating from the end of the 16th century.
Bagnols calms down then slowly during two centuries. The castle became farm and the Farmyard was partially destroyed with the profit of immense the cuvage.
In 1987, Lady and Lord Hamlyn discovered the castle, sublimates sad building with the bored roofs and walls cracks, with the exuberant plants, lodging in one of her towers a family of corbels. It nevertheless was classified Historic building, and protected by the French State for its historical and architectural importance.
At this point in time the Castle, reappearing of its ashes, entered during its 4th time. The owners, forts of beautiful of energy and an undeniable inspiration, brought back it to its splendour antan. More than 400 contractors and craftsmen took up the challenge while hundreds of articles, ordered especially in the whole world, supplemented the private collection of antiquities which furnished the Castle. Thus, Raynaud, historical manufacturer of porcelain in Limoges created the white porcelain with the blue armorial bearings while Hartzviller, in Alsace, carried out copies of glasses of the 18th century. Liddell, old woman undertaken Irishwoman, made the table linen. The Lyonese Prelle created the silk which one covered the chairs with the dining room.
An atmosphere of serenity, elegance and luxury emerges from this magic place, equipped however with all modern installations.
Bagnols could easily have disappeared but, extremely of a new breath, it opens its doors with those which wish to live a single experiment in one of the most beautiful castle hotels of France.
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