1. Amboise, town2. Château Gaillard, Amboise3. Tours, town4. Royal Château of Amboise5. Royal Château of Blois6. Château de Chenonceau78. Château d’Azay-le-Rideau9. Château de Chambord10. St. Anne's Collegiate Church, château, Ussé11. St. John the Baptist Collegiate Church, Montrésor12. Jehan de Seigné Chapel, Bléré13. Town hall, Beaugency14. Château de Villesavin, Tour-en-Sologne15. Château de l’Islette, Cheillé – Azay-le-Rideau16. Loches, town17. Château de Villandry18. Château de La Côte, Reugny19. Sainte-Chapelle, Champigny-sur-Veude20. Royal Abbey of Fontevraud, the Grand Moûtier and the Chapter House21. Le Rivau, stables of the château, Lémeré
Château de Nitray, Athée-sur-Cher
The impressive Château de Nitray overlooks the Cher Valley to the east of Tours, near Chenonceau. The buildings date back to the 15th and 16th centuries, but the site shows evidence of an earlier château. In the early 16th century the lord was Aimery Lopin, who was from a family of lawyers in Tours, Maître des Requêtes (master of requests) to the queen mother Louise de Savoie, and mayor of Tours from 1516 to 1517. The château was acquired through marriage in 1531 by Jean Binet, a lawyer related to the powerful Briçonnet family and mayor of Tours from 1543 to 1544.
The site is structured around a main courtyard, with a main building (16th century), two outbuildings with an impressive framework and dormers (15th century), a dovecote (16th century) and a monumental gate (15th century). The gate consists of two round towers with candle-snuffer roofs, one of which houses a chapel. One of the outbuildings features a huge fireplace, on which you can just make out traces of a fresco depicting a hunt.
Built during the reign of Francis I in 1516-1517, then refurbished between 1540 and 1550, the main building spans three floors in a rectangular layout. It is covered by a high roof punctuated by dormers, with fractable gables at each end. The main façade faces the valley and, due to the differences in level, the ground floor is accessible via an external staircase. The façades are chequered with horizontal string courses and bays, but the order is not regular. Fine pilasters frame the mullioned windows. The dormers on the two façades are different. On the park side they have large shells, and on the courtyard side they are decorated with wreaths and the coats of arms of the Aimery and Binet families. The staircase towers extend beyond the roof line and accentuate the façades.
In the interior, the framing is richly sculptured with ornamentation featuring human figures. Several fireplaces have been preserved, including the one in the great hall, which features the emblems of Francis I and his wife. Some researchers believe the famous architect Philibert Delorme was involved in the 1540s and 1550s.
The site is surrounded by grounds currently in the English style and vineyards, which have been famous since the Renaissance.
Like his fellow members of the new nobility, Aimery Lopin had a fiefdom, which had the value of a social class. Thanks to his château he was able to gravitate around both the town and the royal residences. But he does not seem to have been concerned about the visible signs of power. By its sheer mass and direct contact with nature, the Château de Nitray reflects a different mentality. The architect totally abandoned (almost) all defensive elements, instead offering a light, harmonious building. Sufficient for expressing the rank of the person who commissioned it, but modern and pleasant, as no doubt requested.
For the Binets, the challenges were doubled with the royal acquisition of the large neighbouring château, Chenonceau. The presence of this new neighbour served to impose the model chosen by his predecessor even further. He then entered into philosophical and humanist debate, arriving at a single new ideal: to live in harmony with Nature.
