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Heritage classified

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Origin and history

The Château de Montrottier, built between the 13th and 15th centuries on a rocky hill overlooking the Gorges du Fier, was originally a strategic strong house controlling the road between Chambéry and Geneva. Its cylindrical dungeon, its houses and its square tower ("Tour des Religieuses") illustrate Savoyard military architecture, with major changes in the 18th and 19th centuries, notably under the impetus of the Menthon-Montrottier, Dufour and Brotherjean families.

Montrottier's family, quoted in 1263, gave up the castle to the Grésy in 1266, then to Amédée VIII de Savoie in 1425. The latter sold it in 1427 to Pierre de Menthon, who undertook important works: construction of the dungeon, the houses of the Knights and the Counts, and repair of the courtesies. The castle remained in this family until the Revolution, erected in Barony (1596) and then in County (1632).

Sold as a national property in 1796, the castle passed into the hands of Genevan families (Dufour, Rochette) before being acquired in 1876 by Victor Frerejean, master of Lyon forges. In 1906, Léon Marès, a passionate collector, inherited the estate and left it at the Académie florimontane in 1916. It established a museum there in 1919, highlighting its collections of arms, tapestries, porcelain and extreme-eastern art objects, now labeled "Museum of France".

The castle is distinguished by its 13th century pentagonal enclosure, its 35 meters high dungeon with imposing mâchicoulis, and its Renaissance home restored in the 19th century. The "Salle des Chevaliers", with its coffered ceiling and monumental fireplace, bears witness to the medieval fascination. The terraced gardens, furnished in the 19th century by the Rochette family, complete this site classified as a historical monument (donjon, house and tower classified in 1919; land in 1935).

The collections, collected by Léon Marès, include 18th-century Flemish tapestries, 15th and 13th-century religious sculptures (such as a Virgin of pity or a Pietà in polychrome wood), and bronzes from the German Renaissance. The estate, still managed by the Académie florimontane, is the subject of research published annually in the Revue Savoisienne, perpetuating the legacy of Joseph Serand and Julien Coppier.

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