Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The Hotel de Brantes was founded in three houses acquired between 1622 and 1685 by the family del Bianco (francized in du Blanc), a line of Florentine nobles settled in Avignon. Olivier du Blanc, a gentleman and collateral (inspector-commissioner) of the pontifical troops, bought the first house in 1622. His son Alexander, also collateral and governor of the castle of Sorgues, acquired the other two plots and had the existing buildings razed to build a hotel between August 1685 and November 1686. The attribution of his design to Peter II Mignard, though plausible, remains hypothetical.

In the 18th century, the hotel became the symbol of the prestige of the White, Marquis de Brantes. Pierre du Blanc, son of Alexander, enlarged the estate in 1697 and described the building as a "great new house" in 1728. The facade, marked by rebellious chains and oval egg-eyes, could have been reworked in the second half of the seventeenth century. In 1784 Marc Louis du Blanc de Brantes, a great grandson of Olivier, financed an aerostat launched from his Sorgues estate, illustrating the innovative spirit of the family.

The Revolution saves the hotel, the family having not emigrated. In 1809 he went by alliance to Jean-Girard Lacuée de Cessac, general and minister of war under Napoleon, then dean of the French Academy. Denied as a residence for the archbishop in 1808, it now houses the cultural services of Avignon. Ranked a historic monument in 1932, it bears witness to the influence of the Italian elites in the Comtat Venaissin and the Avignon architectural evolution.

The building is distinguished by its history linked to the pontifical military charges, held hereditary by the White. The marriage alliances (Calvet, Pielat, Cambis) and the positions held (governors, treasurers of the legation) underline their integration into the local aristocracy. The opuscule on the aerostat of 1784, written with archaeologist Antoine Artaud, also reveals their openness to the Lights.

Architecturally, the hotel combines classic sobriety with late baroque details, such as oval windows. Its location in the centre of Avignon (2 rue Petite-Fusterie), near the Papal Palace, reinforces its status as a symbol of noble power under the Ancien Régime. The preservation of its institutional use since the 19th century makes it a living place of the Avignon heritage.

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