In 1450, Jean II de Chambes, First councelor of Charles VII and ambassador in Venice, bought the fortress of Fulk III to his brother in law and destroyed it in order to build a residential palace on the top of the rock of Montsoreau (the mount Soreau). In an unprecedented move, he built the Château de Montsoreau in a residential style following Italian architecture of the time which makes it the first Renaissance building in France. The Château de Montsoreau was directly on the river bank and still today, it remains the only château of the Loire Valley to have been built in the river bed of the Loire.
In 1572, four days after Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre (24 August) in Paris, Jean de Chambes started the "St. Bartolomew Angevine". He almost eliminated the Reformed Church both in Saumur and Angers.
After the French Revolution, the exploitation of a building stone, the Tuffeau stone, brutally passed its population of 600 inhabitants to more than 1000, maintained during the first half of the nineteenth century.
The battle of Saumur, is considered as the first act of resistance of World War II in France.
In Montsoreau, Saumur and Gennes, in June 1940, teenage students of the school of cavalry, still under training and with derisory weapons (including an artillery gun from the school museum), heroically engaged an entire German panzer division for nearly three days. And in doing so became a legend in France. – "For Honour Alone", Roy Macnab, January 1989.
Montsoreau is at the center of the Loire Valley, in north-western France, from the Atlantic Ocean, and approximately from Saumur, Chinon and Bourgueil. It is situated in southeastern Maine-et-Loire department, approximately halfway between Paris and Bordeaux.
The village is at the crossroad of the three main administrative regions of, Pays de la Loire, Centre-Val de Loire, and Nouvelle Aquitaine, and of the three departments of, Maine-et-Loire Indre-et-Loire, and Vienne.
Montsoreau is part of the Metropolitan Area of Saumur Val de Loire and share borders with municipalities both in the Maine-et-Loire and Indre-et-Loire departments. These municipalities are: Candes-Saint-Martin, Chouzé-sur-Loire, Fontevraud-l'Abbaye, and Turquant.
Star apple
The star apple ("Chrysophyllum cainito") is a fruit found in the lower regions of Eastern Mongolia. It is a hybrid fruit, ("Star", "Apple"). It is not poisonous.
EgyptAir Flight 864
EgyptAir Flight 864 was a flight from Rome Fiumicino Airport to Tokyo International Airport in Tokyo. On 25 December 1976, the Boeing 707 on the route crashed into an building in Bangkok. All 52 people on board were killed, as well as 19 on the ground in the crash. Pilot error was determined to be the cause of the crash. EgyptAir said that the Bangkok control tower had not given enough weather information to the crew of Flight 864.
Heron Tower
The Salesforce tower is a skyscraper in the City of London, England. Its official name is 110 Bishopsgate and was formerly The Heron Tower, which it is still often called. When completed in 2011 it became the third tallest building in the United Kingdom and the tallest in the City of London after Tower 42. The Heron Tower is on Bishopsgate.
Construction lasted from 2007 to 2011. It is owned by Heron International. In 2014 there was naming dispute between Salesforce.com and Heron International. The City of London ruled in favour of it being named 110 Bishopsgate.
In March 2007, it was confirmed that Heron had signed a funding deal with the State General Reserve Fund of Oman to provide the equity for the development. The works were carried out by Skanska and completed in January 2011.
Château de Montsoreau
The Château de Montsoreau, or simply Montsoreau, is a residential castle in Montsoreau, France. It is the only château of the Loire Valley to have been built in the Loire riverbed.
Philippe Méaille opened the Château de Montsoreau-Museum of Contemporary Art in 2016. Nowadays, The chateau hold the world's largest collection of Art & Language works.
The chateau has been built on the top of the "mount Soreau". This rocky promontory gave its name to the village. On the top of that mount was built a roman temple, a fortress of the counts of Anjou, and a chateau in the Renaissance architectural style.
In English one often speaks of the chateau de Montsoreau or Montsoreau. The chateau de Montsoreau was the first of the chateaux of the Loire Valley to be built in the Renaissance architectural style. When the chateau was built, Montsoreau was already a historical village, home of a royal fortified castle. From 1450, when King Charles VII and King Louis XII moved to Chinon and Tours, the Loire Valley became the centre of power of the ancien régime.
The first fortified castle was built by Odo the First count of Blois in 990. In 1001, it was taken by the count of Anjou, Fulk Nerra ("Fulk the Black"), one of the greatest builders of the middle age, who gave it to Gautier I of Montsoreau. Gautier I belonged to one of the most pre-eminent families of Anjou. Thus, the Castrum Monsorelli became one of the forty fortified castles in Anjou and one of the few to be given the title of lordship at the turn of year 1000. A town developed quickly near the castle. Fulk and Gautier modified the castle, and this one remained impregnable during more than 150 years. In 1152 and 1156 Henry II King of England, besieged and took twice, the castle of Montsoreau.
In 1450, the end of the hundred years war was coming and Jean II de Chambes, the first councellor of Charles VII King of France, bought the castle to his brother in law. Associated with Jacques Coeur, He was one of the richest man of France. He was also France ambassador in Venice and Turkey. He destroyed the fortified castle and built the chateau de Montsoreau in the new architectural style of the Renaissance.
The Château de Montsoreau is said to be the first french Renaissance Building. The building marks the transition from military architecture to palace or chateau. Large windows, numerous chimneys, and the great care that taken to sanitation problems, are some of the characteristics of this new style of building. The castle central dwelling was built directly in the Loire riverbed. Unusually, Two right-angled wings looking like square towers were built a few years later, at a time when round towers were usually built, this odd choice prefigures the corner pavilions of classical architecture. A spiral staircase probably existed before the current Renaissance staircase.
In François Rabelais' Pantagruel, Gargantua rewards Ithybole with Montsoreau, after his victory over Picrochole, the king who attacks the kingdom of Grandgousier.
In 1832, Joseph Mallord William Turner made an aquarelle depicting the chateau of Montsoreau with the setting of the confluence of the Vienne and the Loire and the collegiate church of Candes-Saint-Martin.
The Château de Montsoreau was immortalised by Alexandre Dumas in La Dame de Monsoreau, a novel written between 1845 and 1846. This novel takes as a backdrop the Château de Montsoreau and is part of Alexandre Dumas' trilogy on European wars of religion, between La Reine Margot and Les Quarante-cinqs.
At the end of nineteenth century, Montsoreau was ruined. Auguste Rodin, passionate about architecture, unexpectedly made a drawing of the chateau as it was when it was built.