France · Restored
Château de Sully
The Château de Sully in Saône-et-Loire is the largest Renaissance château of southern Burgundy, built for the Maréchal de Saulx-Tavanes. The symmetrical four-range building, flanked by angled corner towers and surrounded by a moat, was long associated with the MacMahon family and remains a private residence with parts restored.
Its prime
1575
Today
Restored
As it stood in 1575
What Château de Sully looked like in its prime.
A symmetrical, four-range Renaissance château of light beige stone set on a stone base above a water-filled moat; each corner is marked by an angled tower with a steep pyramidal or conical slate roof and finial. A central pediment interrupts the continuous sloping slate roofline above a large arched carriage portal. The ground floor is rusticated with arch-headed windows while the piano nobile displays paired pilasters alternating between windows and coved niches. An axial three-arch stone bridge gives access, with paired vernacular outbuildings facing a grassed forecourt and a fenced kitchen garden to the rear.
Its story
The story of Château de Sully.
The Château de Sully, between Autun and Beaune, is the largest of the Renaissance châteaux of southern Burgundy: four similarly treated ranges flanked by matching angled corner towers with pyramidal roofs, surrounded by a moat and approached by an axial stone bridge. Its Renaissance courtyard was built for the Maréchal de Saulx-Tavanes, confidant of Catherine de' Medici.
Through the marriage of the heiress Charlotte de Morey to Jean-Baptiste de MacMahon, Sully became the historic château of the MacMahon family, and it was the birthplace of the monarchist Field Marshal Patrice MacMahon, duc de Magenta, President of the French Third Republic from 1873 to 1879.
Charles-Marie and Marthe de Vogüé, Marquise de Mac Mahon, restored some of the château during their ownership, and it remains the home of the present duchesse de Magenta and her family. It should not be confused with the Château de Sully-sur-Loire, seat of Henri IV's minister Maximilien de Béthune and the ducs de Sully.
Step inside
8 places to explore in 1575.
The record describes 8 distinct spots at Château de Sully, including 1 interior: interior renaissance courtyard. Create your own photoreal reconstruction and explore every one, more scenes means more rooms, more angles, and more of the place to stand in.
Build Your Own Castle
Recreate Château de Sully with AI to explore it.
The artist rebuilds it as it stood in 1575, a photoreal reconstruction that belongs to you alone. Pay with coins, no subscription needed.
Recreate this castle →Castle Siege
Play Castle Siege at Château de Sully.
A strategy game played on Château de Sully’s real ground plan: the same surveyed walls shown in the archive below. Post your finite garrison on the battlements between assaults, then hold out as rams, siege towers, trebuchets and sappers arrive in ever-worse waves.
Sign in free to see the garrison muster. One castle costs 150 Clan Coins and is yours forever.
Sign in to take command →Whose castle
Clans who held Château de Sully.
The families that held Château de Sully for a decade or more across its history, follow a name to its clan.
Saulx-Tavanes
The Renaissance château was built for the Maréchal de Saulx-Tavanes, confidant of Catherine de' Medici.
MacMahon
Came to the MacMahons through the marriage of the heiress Charlotte de Morey to Jean-Baptiste de MacMahon; still home of the present duchesse de Magenta.
From the archive
Château de Sully on paper: the measured plan and period views.
The survey plan and photographs below are the ground truth this page's reconstructions are checked against, drawn and photographed while the castle was still a working garrison. Every image is public-domain or openly licensed, with its source named.
Chateau de Sully. Chateau de Beaumesnil. Chateau de d´Ancy le Franc: Ansichten (aus: Baukunst d. Renaissance i
· Museum of Architecture at Berlin Institute of Technology (via Europeana)
CC0 (no rights reserved)
