Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte

About this place

The Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte or simply Vaux-le-Vicomte is a Baroque French château located in Maincy, near Melun, 55 km southeast of Paris in the Seine-et-Marne department of Île-de-France. Built between 1658 and 1661 for Nicolas Fouquet, Marquis de Belle Île, Viscount of Melun and Vaux, the Superintendent of Finances of Louis XIV, the château was an influential work of architecture in mid-17th-century Europe. At Vaux-le-Vicomte, the architect Louis Le Vau, the landscape architect André Le Nôtre and the painter-decorator Charles Le Brun worked together on a large-scale project for the first time. Look at the entrances, walls and surrounding terrain together. Their relationship helps explain how the site controlled movement and protected its occupants, while later alterations can reveal the shift from military stronghold to residence or monument.