Montaigne's Tower is the southern tower of the

Château de Montaigne The Château de Montaigne is a castle mansion situated on the borders of Périgord and Bordelais, near Bergerac and Saint-Émilion, in the small '' commune'' of Saint-Michel-de-Montaigne in the Dordogne ''département'' of France. The struct ...

, a historical monument located in the French département of

Dordogne Dordogne ( , or ; ; ) is a large rural departments of France, department in south west France, with its Prefectures in France, prefecture in Périgueux. Located in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region roughly half-way between the Loire Valley and ...

. The tower is the only vestige of the original sixteenth-century castle, since the other buildings had to be rebuilt following a fire in 1885. The tower was renovated and redecorated to

Michel de Montaigne Michel Eyquem, Seigneur de Montaigne ( ; ; ; 28 February 1533 – 13 September 1592), commonly known as Michel de Montaigne, was one of the most significant philosophers of the French Renaissance. He is known for popularising the the essay ...

's specifications in 1571, following his first retirement from public life. It notably contained the famous library and study in which he spent "most of his days" and the study in which the ''Essays'' were written. In recognition of its historical and cultural significance, the tower has been classified as by the French government since 1952. It is the only one of the castle's buildings to be open to visitors today.

Architecture

The tower is in fact composed of three distinct architectural elements: the central round tower, a smaller secondary tower (containing a spiral staircase), and a square ''

corps de logis In architecture, a ''corps de logis'' () is the principal or main block, or central building of a mansion, country or manor house, castle, or palace. It contains the rooms of principal business, the state apartments and the ceremonial or formal ...

'' protruding from the tower. It was built in the sixteenth century in the neo-renaissance style. It abuts the

barbican A barbican (from ) is a fortified outpost or fortified gateway, such as at an outer defense perimeter of a city or castle, or any tower situated over a gate or bridge which was used for defensive purposes. Europe Medieval Europeans typically b ...

defending the main entrance to the castle and its courtyard, or

cour d'honneur A court of honor ( ; ) is the principal and formal approach and forecourt of a large building. It is usually defined by two secondary wings projecting forward from the main central block ('' corps de logis''), sometimes with a fourth side, co ...

, on the side of the gate. St Michel de Montaigne Tour03

Inside the tower

The round tower contains a chapel with a vaulted ceiling on the first floor, while the second floor was used as a bedroom. Conduits hidden between the first and second floor transmit sounds with good fidelity, which allowed Montaigne to hear

Mass Mass is an Intrinsic and extrinsic properties, intrinsic property of a physical body, body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the physical quantity, quantity of matter in a body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physi ...

without leaving his bedroom in his old age. The third floor contains a small room which served as the library in Montaigne's time, and a square ''corps de logis'' three meters long by two and a half wide which was used as a study by Montaigne. While the corps de logis was almost entirely covered in paintings in Montaigne's life, only traces of the seccos subsist to this day.

The tower in Montaigne's time

Scholars have long noted that the tower's physical environment influenced Montaigne's writing; Montaigne himself elaborates on the importance of the library for his writing in the third essay of the third part of the ''Essays''. Montaigne did not simply use the books in his library for inspiration, but he was also stimulated by the paintings and maxims painted all over its walls and ceilings, as shown by the usage in the ''Essays'' of citations drawn from the room's paintings. The extent and nature of this influence remains however difficult to ascertain: while early critics may have conjectured a stylistic correspondence between the proliferating decorations and Montaigne's exuberant writing, more recent scholarship tends to insist on Montaigne's personal approach to the inspiration provided by the paintings and maxims surrounding him or on the way its physical arrangement, "a structure based on comparison and contrast," reflects Montaigne's associative reading tendencies.

The library

Forty-six of its forty-eight oak joists, as well as two supporting beams, were painted with Greek and Latin citations in Montaigne's time. These inscriptions are still visible today, although some of them cover earlier inscriptions. Visitors in the eighteenth century noted the presence of maxims on the boards of the library as well as on its shelves, but these are today erased. A dedication of the entire library to Montaigne's friend

Étienne de La Boétie Étienne or Estienne de La Boétie (; ; 1 November 1530 – 18 August 1563) was a French magistrate, classicist, writer, poet and political theorist, best remembered for his friendship with essayist Michel de Montaigne. His early political trea ...

is also lost, as is the cabinet which contained over a thousand books. The two load bearing beams bear eight inscriptions from skeptic authors, mostly from

Sextus Empiricus Sextus Empiricus (, ; ) was a Greek Pyrrhonist philosopher and Empiric school physician with Roman citizenship. His philosophical works are the most complete surviving account of ancient Greek and Roman Pyrrhonism, and because of the argument ...

. The forty-six joists, distributed on three rows, are inscribed with a total of sixty-seven sayings taken in their majority from the Bible and from classic authors (including

Horace Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 BC – 27 November 8 BC), Suetonius, Life of Horace commonly known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). Th ...

Lucretius Titus Lucretius Carus ( ; ; – October 15, 55 BC) was a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is the philosophical poem '' De rerum natura'', a didactic work about the tenets and philosophy of Epicureanism, which usually is t ...

Menander Menander (; ; c. 342/341 – c. 290 BC) was a Greek scriptwriter and the best-known representative of Athenian Ancient Greek comedy, New Comedy. He wrote 108 comedies and took the prize at the Lenaia festival eight times. His record at the Cit ...

, and

Sophocles Sophocles ( 497/496 – winter 406/405 BC)Sommerstein (2002), p. 41. was an ancient Greek tragedian known as one of three from whom at least two plays have survived in full. His first plays were written later than, or contemporary with, those ...

). Many of these are mentioned in the ''Essays'', either verbatim, in translation, or in paraphrase. Alain Legros argues that the order in which Montaigne would have encountered the quotations while walking in the room is perceptibly influential on the structure of some essays, notably the "Apology for Raymond Sebond." Later authors such as Grace Norton, Pierre Villey, Michel Butor and George Hoffmann have also discussed these quotations. The library has been mentioned in travel accounts as early as from 1611, including one in English ( John Sterling in 1836).

The study

The study, the only room in the tower to have a fireplace, contained most of the paintings commissioned by Montaigne. Painted ''a secco'', they included "a landscape with

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is often called Earth's "twin" or "sister" planet for having almost the same size and mass, and the closest orbit to Earth's. While both are rocky planets, Venus has an atmosphere much thicker ...

and

Adonis In Greek mythology, Adonis (; ) was the mortal lover of the goddesses Aphrodite and Persephone. He was considered to be the ideal of male beauty in classical antiquity. The myth goes that Adonis was gored by a wild boar during a hunting trip ...

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmosph ...

and Venus surprised by Vulcan, Cimon suckled in prison by his daughter Pero, a shipwrecked sailor safely on shore beside a temple to

Neptune Neptune is the eighth and farthest known planet from the Sun. It is the List of Solar System objects by size, fourth-largest planet in the Solar System by diameter, the third-most-massive planet, and the densest giant planet. It is 17 t ...

, a figure with a lance before another temple, and a combat between soldiers (perhaps gladiators) in what might have been an amphitheater." Early accounts also report the presence of representations of the

Judgment of Paris The Judgement of Paris is a story from Greek mythology, which was one of the events that led up to the Trojan War, and in later versions to the foundation of Rome. Eris (mythology), Eris, the goddess of discord, was not invited to the wedding ...

and of the burning of Troy, as well as a banquet scene, but these are not mentioned in accounts dating from the nineteenth century. A still visible Latin inscription, dated from the year 1571, dedicates the room " à sa liberté, à sa tranquillité et à son loisir" ("to his ontaigne'sfreedom, to his tranquility, and to his leisure"). Decorated in the ornamented style typical of French

Mannerism Mannerism is a style in European art that emerged in the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520, spreading by about 1530 and lasting until about the end of the 16th century in Italy, when the Baroque style largely replaced it ...

style, the paintings and elaborate borders filled "every inch" of the available surface, including "ceiling beams, and ceiling." One of the central theme of the paintings gathered in the space seems to have been nudity, a question metaphorically at the heart of the writing project of the ''Essays''.

In culture

As a symbol of the tension between the writing imagination and the constraint of one's environment, the tower has appeared in the writings of many other writers than Montaigne. For instance, "Montaigne's Tower" is the title of a poem by

Geoffrey Grigson Geoffrey Edward Harvey Grigson (2 March 1905 – 25 November 1985) was a British poet, writer, editor, critic, exhibition curator, anthologist and naturalist. In the 1930s he was editor of the influential magazine ''New Verse'', and went on to p ...

, published in the 1984 collection ''Montaigne's Tower and Other Poems''. It probes the relation between the writer, his immediate environment, and the compass of his imagination by imaging Montaigne at work in his library and looking out at the countryside surrounding the castle after asking its initial question: "Was it really here, in this tiled room In this tower, that Montaigne wrote?" Hilary Masters presents another take on a similar subject in his collection of essays published in 2000, ''In Montaigne's Tower''. In recounting a visit to the tower, he notes the ways in which it is designed to provide for both spiritual and material needs, but for him constraints assert themselves over the freedom provided by the refuge: "Our imaginations, often falsely confirmed by memory, can cross many borders, but these escapes are doomed and freedom always lies just beyond".

References

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