Chateau de Saint Germain

The Chateau de Saint Germain en Laye is a royal palace within the commune of Saint Germain en Laye within the department of Yvelines, about 19 km west of Paris, France. Today, it homes the National Museum of Archaeology. The first castle, named the Grand Chatelet became built on the web site with the aid of Louis VI in around 1122. The fort was elevated with the aid of Louis IX within the 1230s. Louis IX's chapelle Saint Louis on the citadel belongs to the Rayonnant phase of French Gothic structure.

A 1238 charter of Louis IX instituting a everyday religious carrier on the chapel is the primary point out of a chapel having been built on the royal citadel. This becomes a Sainte Chapelle, to house a relic of the Crown of Thorns or the True Cross. Its plan and architecture prefigure the most important Sainte Chapelle which Saint Louis built within the Palais de la Cite at Paris among 1240 and 1248. Both buildings were built by means of Louis favourite architect Pierre de Montreuil, who tailored the architectural formulae invented at Saint Germain for use in Paris.