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Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The Hotel d'Assézat, located in Place d'Assézat in Toulouse, is a masterpiece of French Renaissance architecture. He was commissioned in 1555 by Pierre d'Assézat, a rich pastel and capitul merchant, and was designed by Nicolas Bachelier, a major Toulouse architect, and completed by his son Dominique between 1560 and 1562. The building combines classicism (façades with superimposed orders) and mannerism (loggia, courier), inspired by Serlio's treatises. Its monumental staircase and brick tower, visible from afar, symbolize the prestige of its sponsor.

Pierre d'Assézat, converted to Calvinism, was dispossessed from his hotel in 1562 after an attempt to deliver Toulouse to Protestants. Although acquitted in 1563, he continued to support the Huguenots, before abjuring in 1572 to recover his property. The hotel remained with his family until 1761, when he was sold to Nicolas-Joseph Marcassus de Puymaurin, who added Louis XVI elements. In the 19th century, it became the property of the Sabatier and then Gèze families, before being bequeathed to the city in 1894 by Théodore Ozenne.

The hotel is distinguished by its inner courtyard, doric, ionic and Corinthian-column façades, and its maneristic loggia. The stair tower, adorned with a muscular term evoking Atlas, and the monumental portal, inspired by Serlio, illustrate the learning of its sponsor. Ranked a historic monument in 1914, since 1994 it has housed the Bemberg Foundation, exhibiting 1,100 works of art (Bonnard, Monet, Picasso...) and the Union of Scholarly Academies, including the Floral Games, Europe's oldest literary society (founded in 1323).

The restoration of the years 1980-1993 preserved its exceptional decor, mixing brick and stone. The courtyard, supported by grotesque mask consoles, and the finely carved metopes of the portal testify to the refinement of the Toulouse Renaissance. The hotel, symbol of the economic power linked to pastel, also embodies the religious tensions of the Wars of Religion, before becoming a major cultural place.

Today, the Assézat hotel combines heritage and modernity: its rooms house permanent exhibitions (paintings, sculptures) and scholarly societies dedicated to archaeology, medicine or legislation. Its architecture, inspired by both antiquity and Italian innovations, makes it a unique testimony of the nascent French classicism, alongside the Louvre or the castle of Caumont.

Future

It houses the Bemberg Foundation Museum which presents a collection of art, including painting, from the xve to the beginning of the 20th century.

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