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Origin and history

The Madonna Tower is the dungeon of La Garde Castle, built in the 13th century on the town of Villeneuve-Loubet, in the Alpes-Maritimes. This castle, surrounded by a village and a church, is mentioned as early as 1113 under the name of The Guard, a site probably occupied by the Romans. Two churches coexisted: a castral chapel dedicated to the Trinity, attached to the bishop of Antibes in 1139, and another dedicated to Saint Martin, assigned to the abbey of Lérins in 1146. The castle became a den of brigands in the 14th century, notably under Féraud de Cabris, prior of Roquefort, who looted Draguignan in 1341. Assieved without success by the communities of Grasse and Saint-Paul, the castle was finally destroyed in 1391 on the order of Queen Mary, with the exception of the tower, too resistant.

In the 18th century, the Marquisat de La Garde passed to the family Mark-Tripoli de Panisse-Passis, who inherited the site in 1742. The tower, repaired in 1877 by Pierre-Henri de Panisse-Passis, was then surmounted by a statue of the Virgin, bearing her present name. Ranked a historical monument in 1989, it bears witness to medieval defensive architecture with its pentagonal plan, similar to the dungeon of the Château de Villeneuve-Loubet (1231–1234). Its strategic location, at the top of a hill on the Grasse road, made it a key checkpoint for the region.

The site illustrates the disturbances of the late Middle Ages in Provence, marked by insecurity and conflicts between local lords and communities. The partial destruction of the castle in 1391 reflects the radical measures taken to eradicate the dens of robbers. In the 19th century, the tower, preserved as a religious and historical symbol, embodies the re-appropriation of a medieval vestige by the local aristocracy, before its official protection a century later.

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