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Origin and history

The hotel of Bernuy is a Toulouse mansion built between 1503 and 1536 for Jean de Bernuy, a rich pastel merchant of Castilian origin. Located at the corner of Léon-Gambetta and Joseph-Lakanal streets, it embodies the transition between Gothic and Renaissance style, with a remarkable entrance courtyard and a facade decorated with sculptures. John of Bernuy, from a family of converted Jews, enriched by the pastel trade and entered the capitulat in 1534-1535. The hotel, symbol of its social ascent, passed to the Jesuits in 1567, who founded a college there.

In 1503, Jean de Bernuy bought buildings in the rue des Cordières-Veilles (current avenue Maurice-Prin) and entrusted the construction to masons such as Guillaume Langlois and Amouric Cayla. The first campaign (1503-1504) retained a Gothic style, while subsequent works (1520-1536) incorporated Renaissance elements, such as the sculpted gate of the rue des Argentiers (current Léon-Gambetta street). The interior courtyard, designed by Louis Privat in 1530, features a luxurious stone decor, with Corinthian columns and heraldic medallions.

After the death of Jean de Bernuy in 1540, the hotel was sold in 1562 to Toulouse bourgeois, who offered it to the Jesuits in 1566. They opened a college there in 1567, marking the beginning of his educational vocation. Expelled in 1762, the Jesuits gave way to a royal high school in 1802, then to the Collège Pierre-de-Fermat since 1957. Ranked a historic monument in 1889, the hotel preserves remarkable elements such as its moulded wooden gallery for the Cité de l'architecture in Paris.

The facade on street, brick and stone, combines Gothic motifs (accolades, pinacles) and Renaissance (medalons, putti). The central medallion, originally decorated with Bernuy's coat of arms, was replaced in the 17th century by a Christian monogram, then in the 19th century by a Apollo head. The motto of Jean de Bernuy, Si Deus pro nobis, appears on a phylacter. The hexagonal tower, 26.5 metres high, dominates the whole and recalls the nobiliary ambitions of its sponsor.

The first courtyard, square and decorated with Corinthian columns, illustrates the influence of Spanish architectural treatises, such as the Medidas del Romano de Diego de Sagredo. The vault of the gallery, decorated with antique roses, and the empty medallions bear witness to an unfinished iconographic program. The second courtyard, older (1504), preserves Gothic elements such as cross windows and a carriageway topped by a heraldic lion.

Between 1885 and 1889 the architect Anatole de Baudot, pupil of Viollet-le-Duc, restored the wooden gallery. In the 21st century, renovations (2007-2023) preserve this heritage, including the facade of Rue Léon-Gambetta. The Bernuy hotel remains a major testimony of the Toulouse architecture of the Renaissance, linked to the economic (pastel) and religious history (Jerusalem college) of the city.

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