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Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The castle of Vitré, built from the middle of the 11th century, finds its origins in a first wooden castrum vetus built towards the year thousand by Baron Riwallon of Vitré on a castral mot (present site of the church of St. Croix). Fired several times, it is abandoned to the benefit of a stone castle built at the end of the 11th century by Robert I of Vitré on a schistose promontory overlooking Vilaine. A Romanesque porch of that time still remains today.

In the 13th century, Baron André III rebuilt the castle in its current triangular form, inspired by the Philippian model, and strengthened the city. The circular dungeon, surrounded by dry ditches, dominates the rocky spur. Upon his death, the estate passed by alliance to the Counts of Laval, marking the beginning of a period of 150 years poorly documented. The major reconstruction took place between 1384 and 1430 under Guy XII of Laval: the castle was enlarged, equipped with modern defences (a double-bridge drawbridge castle, Madeleine tower, Saint-Laurent tower pierced with gunboats) and transformed into a comfortable seigneurial residence.

The St. Lawrence Tower, the governor's house and symbolic dungeon, collapsed in 1835 before being rebuilt around 1870. The Oratory Tower, adorned with a Renaissance edicle (1530) commissioned by Guy XVI, illustrates the early adoption of this style in Brittany. His coat of arms, intertwined with those of his wives, underline the alliance between local power and crown. The castle also houses a 12th century Romanesque chapel, remarkable for its polychrome slate apparatus.

In the 16th century, the castle became a Protestant bastion under the families of Rieux and Coligny (1547–1605), resistant in 1589 to a five-month siege led by the Duke of Mercœur. After 1605, the family of La Tremoille abandoned it, accelerating its degradation. The French Revolution marked a turning point with the accidental fire of the seigneurial house in 1795, followed by the construction of a departmental prison in the nineteenth century on its site.

Ranked a historic monument in 1872 (among the first in France), the castle was restored from 1875 by architect Denis Darcy. Arthur de la Borderie, a local historian, founded a museum there in 1876, despite the controversial destruction of the collegiate church of Madeleine. Today, the town hall occupies the seigneurial buildings rebuilt in 1912, while the towers house museum collections (paintings, goldsmith's, enamels of Limoges).

The castle illustrates the evolution of medieval fortresses into aristocratic residences, while at the same time testifying to Breton conflicts (mad war, Wars of Religion) and architectural adaptation to the Renaissance and modern eras. Its triangular plan, 15th century defences and Renaissance oratory make it a unique example of the Breton heritage.

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