This bijou chateau (at least by the standards of Amboise) is light and airy – perfect for an artist. The rooms are not enormous but big enough for a large canvas and to spread out the components for an engineering project.
In one room, there are paintings in progress and a desk which looks as though the great man is still at work but popped out for a break. His cabinet of curiosities is very curious and somewhat macabre but you don’t get to draw the insides of bodies of humans and animals by looking at the outside so it’s not a surprise to discover such bits and pieces. He was an accomplished musician, wrote poetry, was an architect, botanist, engineer and had many more skills.
His note books record the minutiae of his day from what he worked on to the fact that his cook was calling him to come and have lunch. Historians can tell the type of paper he used was French after he arrived so they’ve been able to date what he worked on at the chateau. One of the great projects Francis commissioned was to design a chateau that in itself was like a city (150 years later Louis XIV’s Versailles was to follow this route).
It’s quite astounding to know that he worked on the Mona Lisa in this room.
The Mona Lisa
Francis I bought the Mona Lisa painting and adored it. He took it with him to another of his chateaux – Fontainebleau where he hung it in his bathroom. It seems strange to us but in those days bathrooms were thought to be creative spaces!
If you’ve ever seen the painting in the Louvre, you might well wonder just what is it that makes her so very famous.
According to Irina Metzl, the communi-cations manager at the chateau, there are a