Chateau du Clos Luce in France's Spellbinding Loire Valley - Da Vinci's Last Home
Chateau du Clos Luce is where Leonard de Vinci spent the last 3 years of his life. In 1516 King Francois I invited Leonardo da Vinci to France and he gifted Chateau du Clos Luce to Leonardo together with a pension of 700 golden crowns per annum.
Da Vinci arrived at Amboise over 60 years old with his disciple da Melzi and three paintings, Saint John the Baptist which he finished at Clos Luce, Saint Anne and the Mona Lisa.
The King encouraged experimentation, discussion and much thought at Clos Luce. In this pretty chateau, he happily continued to paint, sketch, and work as an architect, engineer and festival organizer for the court. Francois I found great pleasure in listening to Leonardo.
In a corner of the basement is an entrance to the underground passage connecting Chateau Amboise with Clos Luce, giving Francois I a direct link to the Leonardo's home.
The chateau is open to tourists every day of the year except Christmas Day and New Years Day.
It is situated on a quiet back street of Amboise, a town south of the Loire River between Blois and Tours about 2 hours from Paris by train. The village street has troglodyte houses opposite built into the limestone cliff face. In the distance you can see Chateau D'Amboise which must have completely filled the horizon when it was at its peak and four times its current size.
Da Vinci's chateau is not large, but it is inviting, warm and personable. Wandering unescorted throughout the sparsely decorated home gives you an idea of his life in the early 16th century. The chateau is surrounded by a magnificent treed park with a bubbling brook and peaceful pond with paddle boats available to hire. There is a tiny formal Renaissance garden in the courtyard behind the chateau with perfumed roses and clipped box hedges. It is peaceful, ideal for bird watching, conversation and quiet contemplation.
You can visit his study, salons kitchen and bedrooms, the chapel and see frescoes painted by his pupils. Renaissance artifacts, tapestries, paintings and furniture adorn the rooms which have high, timbered ceilings, well worn plank flooring, and huge fireplaces.
The kitchen has a huge fire big enough to spit-roast a wild boar whole. In winter Leonardo would have warmed himself beside this fire.
There is a large four poster canopied bed in his bedroom swayed with gold and red fabric. Cherubs are carved into the dark wood on his bed.
It is most likely that the yellow salon bathed in light, functioned as studio space for Leonardo It is probably here that he finished his painting of John the Baptist.
His paintings and drawings are set out in the park of the chateau with giant models of the most spectacular machines he invented with voice-overs of Leonardo da Vinci and his disciple Melzi.
Downstairs in the basement, forty models made by IBM from Leonardo's drawings are displayed. These naval, military, hydraulic, mechanical, and aeronautical inventions demonstrate his sheer genius. Many of these designs were envisioned centuries before they came into being. Devices such as swing bridges, a machine gun, a flying machine and an automobile all show sound principles of design.
"A well filled day gives a good sleep. A well filled life gives a peaceful death." After only three years in Amboise, he died on May 2, 1519 and is buried in the Chapelle St. Hubert on the chateau's grounds
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