Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The castle of Gizeux, located in the town of the same name in Touraine angevine, finds its origins in the Middle Ages with a first fortress built in the 14th century. The present building was mainly built by the Bellay family from 1330, after Hugues VI of the Bellay married Alienor de Doué in 1328, heiress of the seigneury. The medieval fortress was completed in 1415, then remodeled in the 15th, 16th and 18th centuries, incorporating Renaissance and classical elements. The castle initially depended on the seigneury of Montsoreau before passing under the senate floor of Saumur in 1544.

The family of the Bellay, including the poet Joachim, kept Gizeux until 1660, when the seigneury passed by inheritance and successive sales to the families of Anglure, Hurault, Rouxellé, and then Grandhomme. In 1747 Marie-Anne-Renée de Grandhomme married Louis-Paul de Brancas, and the estate was then bequeathed to their goddaughter, Julie Constantin de La Lorie, married to the Marquis Louis-Gabriel de Contades in 1786. During the Revolution he had to flee in 1794 before returning in 1801. The castle, classified as a Historical Monument in 1945, remained in the family of Contades-Gizeux until the 20th century, before passing to the Laffon.

Architecturally, Gizeux is distinguished by its 250 metres of facades, its two painted galleries (Galerie François I and Grande galerie des châteaux, 17th century), and its park created in 1829. The estate also includes a church housing the tombs of the Bellay, carved in the seventeenth century by Nicolas Guillain. The commons, moats and agricultural buildings complete this whole, a witness to the stylistic and political transformations of the Angelvin Touraine.

The castle was a place of power linked to the former province of Anjou, before its attachment to Indre-et-Loire in 1790. Today, it offers visits, guest rooms and a cottage, perpetuating its role as an emblem of the Liguria heritage. The large gallery's murals, representing royal castles like Chambord or Versailles, illustrate its historical prestige.

Ranked among the Loire castles, Gizeux embodies the transition from medieval fortress to aristocratic residence, marked by family alliances and complex heritages. Its regional nature park, outbuildings and interior decorations (woodhouses, lambris, monograms of the Bellay) make it a major site of the Centre-Val de Loire.

Future

The castle of Gizeux belongs nowadays to the family of Laffon: besides the visit, 5 guest rooms and 1 cottage allow to stay there.

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