Timeline

Key figures

Origin and history

Tafoureau-Michel House, located in Angers, is a remarkable example of civil architecture in the late 16th century. Built around 1572, it is distinguished by its carved wood panel facade, typical of the Second Renaissance, and its original plan consisting of two rapidly unified housing units. The decors, with little rework, include monograms and a partially erased date, engraved on structural elements such as cariatids and pots. The house was originally divided into two houses, as evidenced by an 18th century declaration, but it was transformed into a single dwelling as early as 1583.

The materials used, such as the shale for masonry and torchi for the hounds, reflect the local techniques of the time. The interior staircase, with four wooden cores and balusters, and an original fireplace, still remain today. The house has changed owners over the centuries, passing into the hands of a tailor (Pierre Tafoureau), a certain Michel (whose name is unknown), then a merchant in the 18th century and a bookseller in the 17th century, Nicolas Chesneau, brother of a Parisian printer-library. These transitions illustrate the social and economic evolution of the neighbourhood.

Several modifications marked its history: in the 17th century, a chimney was added to the second floor, while in the 18th or 19th century, partial changes in the woodpan led to the disappearance of anthropomorphic supports and carved pots. The cover, initially equipped with a double gable on the street, was profoundly altered in the first half of the 20th century, thus losing its original appearance. Despite restoration in 1994, the gables were not restored. The house, classified as a Historical Monument in 1993, nevertheless retains a precious testimony of the Renaissance Angelian urban habitat.

Architectural traces, such as the wood-paned partitioning in the left rear corner (disappeared in the 1980s) or the right corner, recast in the seventeenth century, reveal the successive adaptations of the building. These elements, combined with the archives mentioning its initial division into two houses, provide insight into the lifestyles and spatial organization of the bourgeois houses of the time. Today owned by a private company, the Tafoureau-Michel House remains a major heritage landmark in the historic centre of Angers.

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