The collector's matchbox

THE CHAMBORD CASTLE 1519. A palace emerges in the heart of the marshy lands of Sologne. François I, a young king, ordered its construction. It is a monumental architectural work that the king likes to show to sovereigns and ambassadors as a symbol of his power, inscribed in stone. The plan of the castle and its decorations were conceived around a central axis: the famous double revolution staircase, inspired by Leonardo da Vinci, an ascending spiral that leads from the terraces to the abundance of fireplaces and sculpted capitals. It was not until the reign of Louis XIV that the building was completed. It was also at this time that the surroundings of the castle were developed during the 17th century. The castle and the park are owned by the State since 1930. During the Second World War, the collections of the major Parisian museums were evacuated to protect them from the risks of extraction and bombing of the capital. Thus, Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, the Victory of Samothrace, Raphael's paintings from the Louvre, and the carpets from the Versailles Palace soap factory were taken to a single storage and sorting center, Chambord. The château received 5,446 crates containing some of the Louvre's collections. Today, Chambord welcomes two million visitors per year.