THE LUNETTES

The portico of the castle is adorned with depictions of everyday scenes set inside lunettes, painted with lively images full of details about life and work during the Middle Ages: the guard house with soldiers, the baker’s and butcher’s, the tailor’s, the spice merchant’s, the grocer’s and the market are all depicted. The cycle of paintings was commissioned by Georges de Challant and produced in the last few years of the 1400s and the start of the following century. Of clear political value, it shows a social and economic context of wellbeing and hard work. Workers trained in France, and in particular Lyon, worked on the cycle, guided by a master named Colin. These paintings were a source of inspiration for the fortress and the Borgo medievale in Turin, a reconstruction produced on the occasion of the General Exhibition of 1884.