Chateau Fontainebleau

Construction of the Royal Palace of Fontainebleau began in 1528 in the Fontainebleau Forest to be used as a royal hunting ground when King Henri II and Catherine de Medici commissioned architects Philibert Delorme[?] and Jean Bullant[?].

Later, the Gallery of King Francois I, with its frescoes framed in stucco by Rosso[?] between 1522 and 1540, was the first great decorated gallery built in France. Known as the “Fontainebleau style” of interior decoration, it combined sculpture, metalwork, painting, stucco and woodwork. King Henri IV had a 1200m canal built in the park at the Chateau Fontainbleau (which can be fished today), and ordered the planting of pines, elms and fruit trees.

Three hundred years later the chateau had fallen into disrepair and during the French Revolution many of the original furnishings were stolen. At the beginning of the 1800s, Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, transformed the Chateau de Fontainebleau into a symbol of his grandeur. With modifications of the chateau's structure, including the cobblestone entrance wide enough for his carriage, Napoleon helped make the chateau the place that visitors see today.