THE COURTYARD FRESCOES

The cycle of frescoes in the courtyard of the castle welcome the visitor with the depiction of Saint George on horseback slaying the dragon; it is a celebration of Boniface de Challant, who commissioned the painting, depicted as a courtly knight. Along the balcony some wisemen with scrolls, presently mostly illegible, are depicted. The cycle was produced between the 1410s and 1420s by workers close to Giacomo Jaquerio, the trusted painter of Louis of Achaea and Duke Amadeus VIII. It was Boniface’s son, however, who commissioned the painter Giacomino da Ivrea to create the frescoes on the eastern side of the courtyard, with the Annunciation and figures of saints. Fénis Castle was certainly one of the architectural inspirations for the Rocca del Valentino in Turin, whose courtyard is an exact reproduction of the former’s with its steep semicircular staircase, frescoes and galleries, built for the General Exhibition of 1884.