The royal Château at Amboise is a château located in Amboise, in the Indre-et-Loire département of the Loire Valley in France.
Built on a promontory overlooking the Loire River to control a strategic ford that was replaced in the middle ages by a bridge, the château began this life in the eleventh century, when the notorious Fulk Nerra, Count of Anjou, rebuilt the stronghold in stone. Expanded and improved over time, in the mid 1400s, it was seized (4 September 1434) by Charles VII, after its owner, Louis d'Amboise, was convicted of plotting against Louis XI and executed in 1431. Once in royal hands, the château became a favorite of French kings; Charles decided to rebuild it extensively, beginning in 1492 at first in the French late Gothic Flamboyant style and then after 1495 employing two Italian mason-builders, Domenico da Cortona and Fra Giocondo, who provided at Amboise some of the first Renaissance decorative motifs seen in French architecture. The names of three French builders are preserved in the documents: Colin Biart, Guillaume Senault and Louis Armangeart.
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