Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The wooden house located 28 Place du Martroi in Beaugency, built in the late 15th or early 16th century, illustrates a civil architecture still deeply rooted in the Gothic style. Its features include a corbelled floor supported by carved poles, one of which represents Saint Christophe, a medieval prophylactic figure supposed to protect passersby. The structure combines ground sandstones, a strip of diamond wood, and an additional top, while the original hens were replaced by recent tiles. Originally, the façade had an asymmetrical sprocket wall, now modified.

The total absence of Renaissance influences, yet present in Beaugency from 1530-1535, underscores the stylistic conservatism of this construction. The central pole, shaped like a fork, supports the entrance of the main farm, while the heads of the posts on the ground floor are decorated with side sculptures. The house, classified as a Historic Monument since 1925 for its façade, bears witness to the beliefs and techniques of construction of the transition between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance in the Loire Valley.

The Saint Christophe carved on the left post recalls medieval practices of symbolic protection: his representation was deemed to rule out sudden death for anyone who contemplated it. This detail, coupled with the absence of Renaissance motifs, makes it a unique architectural specimen in the urban context of Beaugency, where the first Italianizing influences began to emerge in the same decades.

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