Château de Montsoreau

The Château de Montsoreau is a Renaissance style castle directly built in the Loire riverbed in the market town of Montsoreau, in the Maine-et-Loire département of France, in close proximity to Saumur, Chinon, Fontevraud-L'abbaye et Candes-Saint-Martin. It is strategically situated between Angers, Tours and Poitiers. The château de Montsoreau has an exceptional position at the confluence of two rivers, the Loire and the Vienne, and at the meeting point of three historic regions: Anjou, Poitou and Touraine. A Gallo-Roman settlement has been attested for Montsoreau but not confirmed as for the castle, even if a fluted column made of stone coming from a Gallo-Roman temple or a public building was found in the moat during the restoration works of the end of XXth century. The first written sources are from the VIth century with the domain of Restis, but it is only with the construction of a fortress at the end of the Xth century that the market town will raise and begin to be prosperous. One part of this first castle has been evidently found during the same restoration works by the archaeologists. The château was reconstructed in a Renaissance style between 1450 and 1460 by Jean de Chambes one of the kingdom's wealthiest men, a senior councillor and chamberlain to King Charles VII and to King Louis XI. The château de Montsoreau has been immortalised by Alexandre Dumas in his novel La Dame de Monsoreau written between 1845 and 1846. This novel is the second part of a trilogy on Renaissance, between La Reine Margot and Les Quarante-cinq. Unlike others châteaux of the Loire Valley, Montsoreau is the only one that has been built in the Loire riverbed. The château de Montsoreau has been listed as a Heritage Site by the French State in 1862. The Loire Valley between Sully-sur-Loire and Chalonnes is inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since November the 30th 2000. Less