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Origin and history

The Granvelle Palace is a Renaissance building built between 1534 and 1547 in Besançon by Nicolas Perrenot de Granvelle, keeper of seals and adviser to Emperor Charles Quint. A symbol of its power, this urban palace in the Grande Rue, incorporating an inner arcade courtyard, a central fountain and an honour staircase in a square tower. Its architecture combines Italian and Flemish influences, with a three-level facade and Gothic skylights.

Originally, the palace houses the collections of art, antiques and books of the Granvelle family, scattered from the late 16th century. Some works today constitute the primitive foundation of the municipal library and the Besançon Museum of Fine Arts. After the French conquest of Franche-Comté by Louis XIV, the building became the residence of provincial governors, such as the Duke of Tallard, who installed a theatre there in 1740 and the Academy of Sciences in 1752.

Sold as a national property during the Revolution, the palace was bought by the municipality in 1864. It successively houses a museum of history after the Second World War, then, since 2002, the Museum of Time, dedicated to Comtoise watchmaking. Ranked a historic monument in 1862, it retains remarkable elements such as a 17th-century chimney inscribed in 1928. Its courtyard today hosts cultural shows and exhibitions.

The architecture of the palace is based on four building bodies around a gated courtyard, with commons organized in two courtyards ( stables, sheds). The orange shop, located in the south wing, opened on a garden transformed into a public promenade. Major restorations, such as those carried out in 2002, preserved this witness of the Bisontine Renaissance, marked by chronograms (1534, 1539, 1540) and the Latin motto of the Granvelle: "Sic voluerunt dii" ("So the gods wanted").

The palace was also linked to the church of the Carmelites, where Nicolas Perrenot de Granvelle had a funeral chapel built in 1549. A tower connecting the two buildings was destroyed in 1782 to widen the street. In the 19th century, some of the outbuildings ("little Granvelle") were demolished or transformed, including the large stables in 1897 to enlarge the promenade. The south wing, a former orangery, will even house a brewery between 1868 and 1932 before its museum conversion.

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