Photo : rosier / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Château de Fleurac
Near Saint-Michel, in the Charente, the Château de Fleurac is built on a rocky escarpment on the left bank of the Charente. It consists of a main building flanked by two pavilions, surrounded by a deep ditch cut into the rock and guarded by a parapet. Some features of the medieval castle survive, such as the old latrines, the kitchen with its 18th-century fireplace and the communal oven where the inhabitants of the fief had to bake their bread.
From the 16th century, the lord Jean Baudouin had the building transformed in the style of the early Italian Renaissance by Italian craftsmen who had settled in the Angoumois around 1515. Having become a country house and hunting lodge, it may have welcomed Francis I, who liked to hunt around Angoulême.
Fleurac shares the features of Italian palaces of the time: a large corner staircase, flat façades, hidden roofs, arcaded galleries and balustraded terraces overlooking the Charente. It is considered the first Italianate château in the region. It was taken and looted during the Wars of Religion.
