The Château des ducs de Savoie, also known as Château de Chambéry, is a fortified castle dating from the 11th century. It is located in the French commune of Chambéry in the Savoie department of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region.
Modified several times since the 13th century, it has retained its administrative vocation ever since. From 1502 to 1578, the castle chapel housed the Holy Shroud. The bell tower now houses the 70-bell "Saint-François de Sales" carillon, the work of the Paccard foundry in Sévrier. A concert is held every first and third Saturday of the month at 11 am.
Today, the château houses the Savoie Prefecture, the , and the Savoie Academy.
Listed as a historic monument: the former Château des Ducs de Savoie was listed by decree on August 10, 1881; the grand salon with its Louis XVI decor was listed by decree on April 20, 1960.
Location
The former Château des Ducs de Savoie is located in the French department of Savoie, in the commune of Chambéry. The château was originally built on a terrace (butte, or poype) facing the town at the end of the Montjay hill. Sloping gently to the southeast, it was then raised to give the château a more commanding position over the town. At its foot was a branch of the Albanne River.
Today, the Albanne has been diverted into the Leysse upstream of the town center, where it no longer flows. The nearest river to the château is the Leysse, some 500 m to the north. At the foot of the castle are the Place du Château and the , which, together with the hospital, mitigates the presence of the Montjay hill near the castle. Still dominant and facing Chambéry's old town and city center, the château is now also dominated by the Bellevue district on the first slopes of the Chartreuse Massif.
History The site occupied by the château was an important crossroads and strategic point, controlling since ancient times the ancient Roman road from Vienne to Italy via the Petit-Saint-Bernard pass and the Mont-Cenis pass, as well as later: the roads from Lyon and Vienne via Les Échelles; the road from Lyon via the Col de l'Épine and the Col du Chat; the road from Geneva via Rumilly and Annecy; the road from Grenoble via the Isère valley and the Col du Granier.
The château is believed to have been built in the 11th century by the lords of Chambéry, near the site of the ancient Roman city of Lemencum.
Before 1563: seat of the House of Savoie On March 15, 1232, Count Thomas I of Savoie acquired part of the town from Viscount Berlion de Chambéry, lord of Chambéry, in exchange for the fiefdom of Montfort and 32,000 sous forts de Suse. The town has been known since 1057. Four members of the de La Forest family, Thorens, Berlion, Sigomon, and Martin, witnessed the transaction. Viscount Berlion kept the castle, which he sold some time later to Otmar Alamand. On May 6, 1255, Thomas II of Piedmont acquired the castle of Chambéry from Alamand as a pledge, and the latter paid him 626 livres, 9 sous bons viennois to settle his debts. In 1259, the castle passed to his widow Beatrice Fieschi, who relinquished her rights in 1264 to Count Pierre II of Savoie, her brother-in-law.
On February 6, 1295, Amédée V of Savoie acquired the castle of Chambéry, its mandement and its viscounty, jurisdiction, vassals, and fiefs from François de La Rochette, lord of Chambéry, and his wife Béatrix, in exchange for 240 Viennois pounds and 100 pounds of revenue in the mandements of Aiguebelle and La Rochette. The Counts of Savoie made it their principal residence. The château now centralized the "administrative functions of the entire county", to the detriment of Montmélian, which retained an important military function, notably with the increase in its garrison.
Amédée V of Savoie undertook major fortification work and residential improvements to accommodate the administration of the States of Savoie and court life, a function the château would retain until 1562, when Emmanuel-Philibert of Savoie moved the center of his States' administration to Turin. There, he moved the Chambre des Comptes, which until then had been itinerant and had been tested by Pierre de Savoie in Faucigny before 1260, to a new building in the Château de Chambéry, which he had recently acquired.
At the end of the thirteenth century, considerable work was undertaken to raise the height of the fortified mound, construct the porter's house and, in the course of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the buildings around today's main courtyard.
On September 16, 1383, the baptism of the future Amédée VIII of Savoie took place in the great hall, decorated in the early 14th century with frescoes by Hugonin Frénier, Maître Jacques and Jean de Grandson. It is assumed that this room was located in the "Vieux Pavillon". In 1365, Charles IV of the Holy Roman Empire had stayed in a room known as the "Emperor's Room".
Bonne de Bourbon, around 1394, built the Chambre des Comptes, the Governor's building. It was at this time that the walls were pierced for the first time with ogival windows, the premise of Gothic art. A three-storey high round tower, designed by Mason François Matelli, was erected between 1395 and 1400.
Defensive towers were also built: the Grande Tour, no longer in existence, the Tour Trésorerie in the 14th and 15th centuries, the Tour demi-ronde in 1398, and the Tour du Carrefour or Tour des Archives in 1439.
In 1408, Count Amédée VIII of Savoie decided to build a new chapel in the flamboyant Gothic style, following plans by Nicolas Robert, an architect from Chambéry. Completed in 1430, the chapel housed the Holy Shroud from 1502 to 1578. In 1466, it was cited in a papal bull as the Sainte-Chapelle du Saint Suaire. In the same year, under the aegis of architect Blaise Neyrand, Yolande de France had the bell tower built. It was in this bell tower, or "Yolande Tower", that the Grand Carillon was installed.
In 1416, to mark the erection of Savoie as a duchy, Amédée VIII had a famous meal served there in honor of Emperor Sigismund. On this occasion, he served a cake depicting his states; this is the origin of the "Savoie cake". Bayard was a page for Charles III in the early 16th century. In 1532, a fire seriously damaged the château.
The castle became home to the prince's itinerant court, and thus the "Hôtel de Savoie". While retaining its role as a fortress, it also served as the administrative headquarters for the Treasury of Charters, the Resident Council, the Chamber of Accounts, and the Chancellery.
From 1563 to 1860: administrative building of the States of Savoie
After the capital of the States of Savoie was transferred from Chambéry to Turin in 1563, the château remained a ducal residence and administrative headquarters. It housed the Chambre des Comptes, the Government of Savoie, and the Intendance Générale.
During the Franco-Savoyard war, which led to the 2nd French occupation of Savoie, the citadel of Chambéry capitulated on August 24, 1600. On August 21, 1600, the city opened its gates to the troops of King Henri IV of France. Count Chabod de Jacob, governor of Savoie, and the bourgeois took refuge with the garrison in the citadel. When the king ordered an 8-gun battery to be placed in front of the citadel, the castle's defenders took fright at this show of force and surrendered. The citadel was not handed over to the King of France until 8 days later. The surrender agreement stipulated that "if within this 8-day period, the Duke came to the rescue with an army, the capitulation would not take place".
In the early 17th century, Governor Dom Félix de Savoie had the Pavillon laid out on the site of the garden adjoining the Tour Trésorerie and the grand parterre; then, from 1655 to 1663, Duchess Christine de France had Amedeo di Castellamonte rebuild the façade of the Sainte-Chapelle in Baroque style.
Victor-Amédée II of Savoie, after abdicating in favor of his son in 1730, retired with his wife, Anna Canalis di Cumianala, Marquise de Spigno, to the Château de Chambéry. He left the château in 1731, intending to regain power from his son.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau worked in the land registry office from 1732 to 1734 during his stay in Chambéry. In his "Confessions", he complained about his work, describing it as "sullen" and the office as "sad and stuffy".
The château was twice burnt down in the 18th century, notably during the Spanish occupation in 1743, during the War of the Austrian Succession, when fire destroyed part of the royal apartments.
Although reconstruction projects were envisaged, they failed for lack of funds. It wasn't until 1775, with the marriage of the future King Charles-Emmanuel IV of Sardinia to Louis XVI's sister, that work began on extending the château towards the Pavillon and building a monumental staircase, by the architect Piacenza.
A new royal wing was built in 1786 but was damaged in 1798 by a mysterious fire that destroyed the Pavillon. On the night of February 23 to 24, 1798, the château was partly destroyed by fire, taking with it all documents relating to the sale of national property, with the exception of those concerning the districts of Chambéry and Carouge. All that remained of the 1792 “Château National” were the royal wing and the isolated half-round tower opposite the Sainte-Chapelle and the medieval building. It was then abandoned.
From 1800 onwards, the first prefects began restoration work. In 1802, the château was assigned to the Prefecture and the General Council of the Mont-Blanc department.
Napoleon I, visiting Chambéry in 1805, commissioned two reconstruction projects. The one he chose transformed the royal wing into an imperial apartment. After the Treaty of Paris in 1815 and the return of the Mont-Blanc department to the Kingdom of Sardinia in 1816, the château once again housed the court. In 1820, King Charles-Félix of Sardinia had the Sainte-Chapelle renovated. In 1836, King Charles-Albert of Sardinia had it decorated with trompe-l'œil paintings by Casimir Vicario.
In 1844, the king made part of the château gardens and the gardener's house, now the museum, available to the Société d'histoire naturelle de la Savoie. King Victor-Emmanuel II of Savoie went on to rebuild the main building. Work began in 1850 under the direction of the king's architect, Ernest Mélano, and was completed during the Third Republic.
Since 1860: a French administrative building
When the château was annexed to France in 1860, it was "conceded free of charge and in full ownership to the Savoie department", and Napoleon III entrusted the architects Dénarié and Duban with the task. A new wing was built and the half-round tower was fitted with a monumental staircase.
The château was restored in the late 19th century. The decorations in the Sainte-Chapelle were restored between 2009 and 2012.
Since 1890, the Château des Ducs de Savoie has housed the Savoie Prefecture, the Savoie Departmental Council, and the Savoie Academy. On November 1, 1997, another fire ravaged the attic and top floor of the east wing.
Description
Chambéry castle takes the form of an irregular quadrilateral, with a square keep flanked by a turret-guette, a tall, semi-circular tower, and a high chapel.
The original château of the Sires de Chambéry, which stood at the end of a mound protected by marshes to the east and north and by a branch of the Albanne river, probably stood on a motte, as the 14th-century designation of "Mollard de la Poype" suggests. A high platform remains to the east of the enclosure, possibly a vestige of the original earthworks. This primitive building was considerably modified and enlarged from the end of the 13th century. Most of the surviving buildings date from the 14th and 15th centuries. The seigniorial dwelling occupied the south wing.