Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The Renaissance House, located in Sainte-Radegonde (Aveyron), presents an irregular massed plan, resulting from successive transformations. The cadastre of 1809 reveals an ancient elongated building (parcelles 12 and 13), oriented north-south, whose remains remain like a red sandstone angle link to the east, marking the northeast corner of a primitive structure close to a square tower. The Gothic architectural elements — the depressed arched door, the ground larmiers, the smooth shield — and the crumbled windows, supported by carved crows and cords, date back to the construction or renovation of the 15th-XVIth century hinge. The interiors, largely redesigned, lost their original distribution.

The façade, the only element preserved intact, illustrates the symbolic importance of the monument: a thick sculpted cornice (human or animal heads) separates the ground floor from the floor, where a double window with crumbs and a single bay rest on a continuous strip. These details, typical of the flamboyant Gothic, suggest an introduction to the taste of the day in the late 15th or early 16th century. The red sandstone, reserved for supports and decorations, underscores the social status of the owners, possibly linked to the Yence family, notaries installed in the house in the seventeenth century after its acquisition by alliance with Johanne Bertrand, from the village.

In the 18th century, the house houses the study of the Royals notary, testifying to its professional and residential use. The Napoleonic cadastre (early 19th century) attests to its division into two properties, probably linked to inheritances or adaptation to the needs of the Yence family. This fragmentation reflects the social changes in the village, where the house — close to the fortified church serving as a refuge — also embodied a local power. Its inscription in the Historical Monuments in 1978 (facade and roof) devotes its heritage value, despite the disappearance of the original interior developments.

The historical context of Sainte-Radegonde explains the defensive and commercial architecture of the town. Village-refuge in times of trouble, it becomes a city-market in times of peace, attracting artisans and notaries like the Yence or Royals. The Renaissance House, with its open façade and its position on the "city tower", symbolized this duality: protection and ostentation. The materials (red sandstone) and late Gothic motifs (crossed tores, braces) highlight a stylistic transition between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, characteristic of the civil buildings of the period in Occitanie.

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