Château de la Punta: A Historicist Family Château in Corsica
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 3.7
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- France
- Primary era
- Modern
- Eras represented
- Modern
- Civilizations
- French
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Castle
On this page14 sections
History
Origins and construction
Château de la Punta is a late nineteenth-century château in Alata, France, built between 1883 and 1891 by the Pozzo di Borgo family in a historicist style that revived and recombined forms from earlier periods. It was intended to preserve the family’s memory in Corsica after the destruction of their ancestral village of Pozzo di Borgo by Barbary raiders in 1594.
Charles-Jérôme Pozzo di Borgo, made a duke by the King of Naples in 1852 for services to the Bourbons, asked his nephews and heirs to rebuild the village. Its former site was considered too arid, however, and the inhabitants had settled in neighboring Alata. Instead of reconstructing the village, the family commissioned the château. Duke Jérôme Pozzo di Borgo and his son, Count Charles, financed the project, which was designed by Albert-Franklin Vincent.
The building incorporated stones from the Tuileries Palace in Paris, a royal and imperial palace burned during the Paris Commune, the revolutionary government that controlled Paris in 1871. After the Chamber of Deputies authorized the palace’s complete demolition, contractor Achille Picard purchased its ruins at auction in 1882 for 33,000 francs and sold them in lots. The largest lot was acquired by Jérôme Pozzo di Borgo and Count Charles.
Vincent oversaw the dismantling and recording of the stones. They were packed into crates, carried by rail to Marseille, shipped to Ajaccio, and then taken to the construction site. A seven-kilometre road had to be cut through the rock to complete the transport. The château was chiefly based on the Bullant Pavilion, a Renaissance-style component of the Tuileries Palace, but it also combined façades and elements from several pavilions rather than copying one building exactly.
Family projects and later use
The family’s architectural reuse continued beyond Corsica. From 1896 to 1899, Duke Jérôme arranged for the eighteenth-century Château de Montretout at Saint-Cloud to be dismantled, enlarged, transported, and rebuilt on the Pozzo di Borgo estate at Dangu in Normandy, acquired in 1884. Louis Dauvergne served as architect, while Achille Duchêne designed the park.
Château de la Punta’s exposed and isolated position made it difficult to inhabit. It consequently served mainly as a family museum. Interest in the property revived during the 1970s as Corsica became a popular tourist destination, although sea air carrying salt had already begun to erode the stone.
Fire, protection, and rehabilitation
On 7 August 1978, a fire in the surrounding maquis reached the château and destroyed its roof structure and roof. A light vehicle from the UISC7 fire and civil-defence unit at Brignoles, then detached to Ajaccio, was sent with two personnel to secure possible residents or visitors. The vehicle was trapped by the flames, and 19-year-old firefighter Patrick Amico died. A commemorative stele was later erected in Alata.
The great terrace entered the supplementary inventory of historic monuments on 27 July 1970. On 7 February 1977, the façades, vestibule, staircase, small salon, grand salon, dining room, and library were classified as historic monuments. In 1991, the damaged château and its 40-hectare park were acquired by the Conseil général of Corse-du-Sud for 10 million francs. The furniture was excluded from the purchase and transferred to Paris and the Fesch Museum in Ajaccio.
The destroyed wooden roof structure was replaced by a metal structure in 1996, followed by the installation of a new roof. The roofless period had lasted eighteen years, allowing water infiltration to combine with the Mediterranean climate and the passage of time to cause severe deterioration. In 2018, the château was selected by a mission identifying endangered built heritage. The Collectivity of Corsica is now the owner, and restoration work under way since 2020 is intended to rehabilitate the building while respecting its history and natural setting.
Remains
Exterior and grounds
Château and terrace
Standing at approximately 600 metres above sea level, the château occupies an exposed position shaped by strong winds and marine air. Its design draws chiefly on the Bullant Pavilion of the former Tuileries Palace while incorporating elements from several pavilions. Each façade differs from the others, preserving varied evidence of the appearance of the palace destroyed in Paris.
A red-marble plaque dated 1891 states that Jérôme, Duke of Pozzo di Borgo, and his son Charles built the edifice with stones from the Tuileries Palace, burned in Paris in 1871, to preserve a precious memory of France for Corsica. In front of the château, the large terrace contains The Four Seasons, a sculptural group transferred from the grand staircase of Paris City Hall, which also burned during the events of 1871.
Park entrance and grounds
The park covers approximately 40 hectares. Its gate came from the Château de Saint-Cloud, destroyed during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. The exposed setting and surrounding marine air have contributed to the erosion of the stone, while the 1978 fire and later water infiltration affected the building’s survival and subsequent rehabilitation.
Interior rooms and decoration
Renaissance-style salon
A large Renaissance-style salon contained a copy of a celebrated coffered ceiling from the Château de La Palice. A coffered ceiling is divided into recessed decorative panels. The room also had a high-quality replica of a monumental stone-and-marble fireplace attributed to the French Renaissance sculptor Germain Pilon. The original fireplace came from the Château de Villeroy and is now in the Louvre Museum.
The replica included a decorative frieze and central medallion made from older elements whose workmanship recalled the style of the Renaissance sculptor Jean Goujon. Wall paneling and doors drew on the Château d’Écouen, while the wall silks were woven in Lyon from sixteenth-century models. The interior decoration is now severely deteriorated.
Dining room
The dining room contained a possibly old fireplace surround in a similar style. An equestrian bas-relief, a sculpted image projecting slightly from its background, represented Paul-Émile Pozzo di Borgo, commander of the Corsican papal troops. Old tapestries surrounded the relief.
Louis XV-style salon
Photographs show a Louis XV-style salon furnished with period pieces. Its decoration included a portrait of the first duke by the English painter John Hayter and eighteenth-century effigies of members of the allied Montesquiou family. The room formed part of the interior ensemble that, around 1965, illustrated the historicist taste of late nineteenth-century European aristocracy.
Empire-style library
The Empire-style library held furniture from Charles-André Pozzo di Borgo’s study in Paris. Empire style was the monumental classicizing style associated with the French Empire of Napoleon I. A pair of vases made by the Saint Petersburg porcelain manufactory stood on the fireplace. Tsar Alexander I had presented them to Charles-André Pozzo di Borgo, who served as French ambassador to Russia for seventeen years and became a hereditary Russian count and a Russian infantry general in 1828.
The library also contained a portrait of Alexander I, Emperor of Russia from 1801 to 1825, and a portrait of the Duke of Richelieu, a minister during the Bourbon Restoration. Later furniture sales ordered by the last owner removed the decorative furnishings from the château.
Roof and upper structure
The fire-damaged wooden roof structure was replaced with metal in 1996, and the building subsequently received a new roof. Posts obscured the dormer windows, which are roof windows projecting from a sloping roof, and their missing joinery was closed with Plexiglas.
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