Chateau de Fontainebleau

The Chateau de Fontainebleau stands some 55 kilometers southeast of Paris, its earliest recorded royal residence dating to 1137 under Louis VII, though the site's original fortified medieval tower likely rose earlier still, under Philip I in the late eleventh century. King Francis I transformed the modest medieval castle into a Renaissance palace between 1528 and 1547, commissioning the architect Gilles Le Breton alongside the Italian artists Rosso Fiorentino and Francesco Primaticcio, whose work produced the celebrated Gallery of Francis I and helped establish what art historians call the first School of Fontainebleau. Later monarchs kept building: Henry II and Catherine de Medici expanded the Oval Court and added an elaborately stuccoed ballroom in the mid sixteenth century, Henry IV made more additions to the palace than any king since Francis I, and Louis XIV through Louis XVI continued modifying the complex, with Louis XV undertaking particularly ambitious renovation work. Napoleon I later kept his own throne in what had been the palace's royal bedroom, a deliberate gesture of continuity with the monarchy he had displaced. Rather than following one unified design, the palace grew gradually across five centuries into an eclectic blend of Renaissance, Mannerist and French classical architecture, distinguished today by features including its horseshoe-shaped staircase; it became a national museum in 1927 and a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1981.