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Origin and history

The Hotel de Thévalle, located in Angers in Maine-et-Loire, is a private hotel built in the 15th century, then profoundly redesigned in the 3rd quarter of the 16th century in the style of the Second Renaissance. It consists of four courtyards and five house bodies, originally organized into a U-shaped plan around an entrance courtyard. The main body, in shale and tuffeau, preserves Gothic elements such as a vaulted cabinet, while the wings and the corner pavilion, added in 1561, illustrate the Renaissance influence with their masonry staircases and facades in stone or stone.

The hotel is built for the family of Thévalle, whose name remains associated with it from the beginning of the sixteenth century. In 1561, the architect Jean Delespine, assisted by Jean Guillot and Nicolas Viriot, transformed the building for the merchant Jacques Richard de Boistravers: a symmetrical pavilion was grafted, a high-chamber staircase tower was added, and the basements were rebuilt with complex schist and tuffeau vaults. These works modernise the hotel, while integrating masonry jobs from the first building, probably built for Emard de Thévalle.

Over the centuries, the hotel underwent divisions and redevelopments: fragmented into several properties as early as 1604, it saw its interiors modified in the 17th and 18th centuries (lambria, fireplaces). The 19th century brought about major alterations, such as the elevation of the south-east wing and the destruction of the stables and the primitive gate, replaced by a report building. The main court was set up in the late 19th or early 20th century. Partial restorations were undertaken in 1988-1990 (left wing) and programmed in 2006 for rear wings.

Ranked a Historical Monument since 1926 (partial protection), the hotel is subject to a revision of its registration in 2006 to include the entire building of the 15th and 16th centuries, as well as the grounds of the old courtyards. Its architecture thus combines medieval vestiges (ogival vaults, cellars in cradle) and Renaissance elements (right staircases, tuffeau facades), reflecting the stylistic and functional evolutions of an angelvin mansion over more than five centuries.

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