France · Restored
Château Grimaldi
Château Grimaldi in Cagnes-sur-Mer is a medieval castle built on a hilltop and long associated with the Grimaldi family; it now houses a municipal museum and exhibition space. The surviving structure retains its medieval defensive silhouette while containing principal reception rooms, a great hall and a chapel with painted ceilings.
Its prime
1625
Today
Restored
As it stood in 1625
The shape it held in its prime.
Perched on a hill above the town, the castle is built of pale local stone and dominated by a large square keep with a projecting machicolated cornice and crenellated battlements, flagpoles rising from its roof. The stronghold sits within high curtain walls and is built around a triangular courtyard; beneath and around it dense clusters of terracotta‑roofed houses, cypress trees and stone terraces tumble down the slope toward the plain.
Its story
The story of Château Grimaldi.
The Château Grimaldi at Cagnes-sur-Mer is built on the site of an earlier fortress occupied by the Greeks and then the Romans. The present castle was raised in 1309 by Rainier Grimaldi, Lord of Cagnes and an admiral of France — a distant ancestor of the present ruling house of Monaco — and later became the residence of the governors of the province.
Under Louis XIII the castle was altered and its principal rooms made more comfortable and redecorated in the contemporary taste; the great hall received a painted ceiling depicting the Fall of Phaëton, completed in the 1620s by the Genoese painter Giulio Benso, though sometimes attributed to Giovanni Battista Carlone. Built around a triangular courtyard, the castle keeps its machicolations and the crenelations surmounting its towers and keep.
Following the French Revolution it was used as barracks and later as a hospital. Now owned by the city of Cagnes as the Château Musée Grimaldi, it towers over the town from its hilltop as an exhibition centre for contemporary art from around the world and a museum of modern art.
Step inside
7 places to explore in 1625.
The record describes 7 distinct spots at Château Grimaldi — including 3 interiors: great hall with painted ceiling, chapel with painted ceiling, principal reception room (louis xiii redecorated). Create your own photoreal reconstruction and walk through every one — more scenes means more photos, more angles and more rooms of the immersive experience.
Create History
Recreate Château Grimaldi with AI to explore it.
The artist rebuilds it as it stood in 1625 — a photoreal walk that belongs to you alone. Pay with coins, no subscription needed.
Recreate Castle to Explore →Whose castle
Clans who held Château Grimaldi.
The families that held Château Grimaldi for a decade or more across its history — follow a name to its clan.
Grimaldi
Built in 1309 by Rainier Grimaldi, Lord of Cagnes and admiral of France, a distant ancestor of the ruling house of Monaco.
