Château-Gaillard, Medieval castle in Amboise, France

Château-Gaillard is a royal residence built from 1496 for Charles VIII on a terrace cut into the southern flank of the Châteliers spur above Amboise. The pale stone logis has a steep slate roof with dormers and a brick chimney, two rows of tall windows, and three dark recessed bays at ground level. It stands above a balustraded terrace and a retaining wall with arched niches, facing a park of about fifteen hectares.

Charles VIII had the domain built from 1496, after his return from the first Italian war, inspired by the villa Poggio Reale near Naples. In 1505 Louis XII ceded it to the gardener Pacello da Mercogliano for an annual rent of 30 sols and a bouquet of orange flowers. Charles de Guise-Lorraine had the royal lodging's facade remodelled in 1559. The chapel and gardens were listed in 1963, the whole domain in 2023.

The domain took the name "Jardins du Roy" from 1500, as Cartier noted in an 1848 Tourangeau archaeology review. Louis XII ceded it to Pacello da Mercogliano in 1505 for an annual rent of 30 sols and a bouquet of orange blossoms. The central fountain of youth surrounds an allegory of the four rivers of paradise: water, milk, wine and honey.

The domain lies at the foot of the southern flank of the Châteliers spur, next to the Clos-Lucé, and is entered through a gate of around 1500 bearing the arms of the First House of Valois. The eight parterres in front of the logis open the axial view; a 350-metre plane-tree avenue laid out in 1885 by owner Jean Théodore Coupier crosses the 15-hectare park, which the Amasse and a spring water.

The name Château-Gaillard long predates any fortress image: from 1500 the estate was called the "Jardins du Roy". In 1505 Louis XII ceded it to dom Pacello da Mercogliano for an annual rent of 30 sols and a bouquet of orange blossoms, a token of the orangery he had planted here.