Museum of Sologne, Regional museum in Romorantin-Lanthenay, France.
The Museum of Sologne comprises three buildings on the Sauldre in Romorantin-Lanthenay: the Chapter Mill, the Town Mill and the Jacquemart Tower. The mills are joined by a low bridge over the river; the tower, with its conical roof, stands beside the pale stone facades and their dark-framed windows. The Chapter Mill forms the heart of the museum.
The museum was created in the 1950s and reinstalled in 1995 in the former Chapter Mill and Town Mill straddling the Sauldre, plus the Jacquemart Tower. The Chapter Mill ran until the 1970s; the Town Mill belonged to the royal household until Francis I ceded it in 1540 and was bought by the town in 1971. It became a Musée de France on 1 February 2003.
Sologne dress is shown through the women's bonnet called la câline, a droguet skirt with apron and cotton caraco, and the men's loose droguet trousers and blue blouse, la biaude. Sunday clothes added jewellery, cashmere and ceremonial headdresses. Models of the healing fountains of Saint-Thibaut at Ménestreau-en-Villette and Saint-Baudemir at Bauzy recall pagan rites kept alongside Christian practice.
The museum sits in the town center and is easy to reach on foot from the station or parking areas. Facilities like restrooms and seating areas are available for visitor comfort.
Leonardo da Vinci once sketched ambitious plans for a royal city here, complete with waterways connecting distant seas. The museum displays his designs and notes about this unrealized dream.
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