Château de Montsoreau

About

The Château de Montsoreau is a French Gothic and Renaissance castle located in the Loire Valley in the commune of Montsoreau, in the south-east of the department of Maine-et-Loire in the Pays de la Loire region. This transitional building between the castle and the urban palace is located at the intersection of three regions: Anjou, Poitou and Touraine. It is located on the left bank of the Loire, on a rocky promontory immediately downstream of the confluence of the river with Vienna.

The château de Montsoreau has been immortalized on numerous occasions, notably by Alexandre Dumas in his novel La Dame de Monsoreau written between 1845 and 1846, by J. M. W.

Turner in a watercolour representing the château and the beak of Vienna, by François Rabelais in Gargantua, who gives Montsoreau as a reward to Ithybole after his victory, and by Auguste Rodin, who idealizes him in a drawing preserved at the Rodin museum. Ranked a historic monument in 1862, it is listed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO under the title of the inscription of the entire Loire Valley between Sully-sur-Loire and Chalonnes-sur-Loire. It has been home to the Museum of Contemporary Art of the Château de Montsoreau since April 8, 2016.