In La Riche, 3 km from Tours, St Cosme priory was founded in the 11th century to welcome pilgrims on their way to Santiago de Compostela. It was the home of Ronsard, prior from 1565 to 1585.
copyright C. Lasseur
The logis du prieur, built in the mid-14th century, is a museum dedicated to Ronsard (1524-1585), the poet and his passion for botany, flowers and gardening. Ronsard had a bedroom, a reception room and a study, all of which have been decorated with Renaissance furniture.
Visitors stop in front of large audio books placed on desks. We listen to extracts of poems and music that, alas, are in modern French. We learn that Salvador Dali or Henri Matisse have illustrated " Les Amours ", a collection of poems published in 1560.
Of the buildings around the cloister, only the canons' refectory has 14 contemporary stained-glass windows, signed by the painter Zao Wou-Ki (1920-2013). A painter who knew how to dialogue with poets, he illustrated the poetry of René Char (1907-1988).
The stained glass windows are very sober, created in Indian ink and made up of red, black and grey spots. They were inaugurated in July 2010.
Court poet
In 1558, Ronsard was appointed official court poet, with the title of adviser and ordinary chaplain to the king. This removed all material concerns from him. A courtier, no doubt, since in the 16th century the official role of the poet to the kings was to sing their praises.
With Joachim Du Bellay (1522-1560), he founded la Pléiade, a group of poets who wanted to promote the French language over Latin. In the main room, the "Artisan des mots" desk gives an insight into these efforts to enrich the language.
Long gone were the days when he met Cassandre at a ball in Blois on 21 April 1545. The daughter of an Italian banker, she was 14 years old. Ronsard fell in love with her immediately, but he was already a tonsured man and so could not marry. He dedicated to her the collection "Les amours de Cassandre" (published in 1552) and the famous ode :
"Sweetheart, let's go and see if the rose
Which this morning had hatched
Its purple dress in the sun,
Has not lost this vêprée
The folds of her crimson dress,
And her complexion the same as yours.
Around 1580, he retired to Saint-Cosme. When he became commendatory prior. He had the premises fortified and received Charles IX and Catherine de Médicis there, far from the tumult of the court.
The priory of Saint-Cosme was located in an area that was cultivated to ensure the community's subsistence. The orchard, with its hundred or so trees (cherry, apple, apricot and peach), is the outpost of the gardens. Laurel trees, flowers, herbs and vegetables all smell delicious. It is likely that Ronsard grew the vegetables and fruit from the orchard here. Artichokes, asparagus and cabbage were all fashionable at the time. The artichoke was such an exceptional dish at the time - it had been introduced to France by Catherine de Medicis (1519-1589) - that it was a privilege to eat it. Ronsard gives it pride of place in this short sonnet:
Artichokes and salad
Asparagus and stingrays
And the Touraine pompons (1)
I'm more fond of herbs
Let the royal meats
Who help themselves to heaps
Today, 9 "remarkable gardens" covering 2 hectares, with 200 varieties of roses, pay tribute to the poet.
While the Priory was wide open to the landscape, the space in the prior's dwelling is enclosed. Visible from Ronsard's study, the kitchen garden is exotic, with beautiful plants from far away, old-fashioned vegetables (arrowroot, chicory, perry), fresh herbs and aromatic plants.
Ronsard died at the priory on 27 December 1585, aged 61, and was buried in the old church, of which only the Gothic arch and Romanesque capitals remain. Ronsard's tomb was discovered by chance by workmen in the choir in 1933. He now lies under a new tombstone, surrounded by vegetation. The inscription on the tombstone reads:
Ronsard lies here, who was bold from childhood,
Turned the muses of France away from Helicon,
Following the sound of the lute and the features of Apollo.
But little was his muse worth against the goad
From death, which cruelly enshrouds him in this tomb:
His soul belongs to God, his body to the earth.
How to find us :
The priory is located in La Riche, near Tours. Accessible by bus (line 3A) or car from Tours city centre.
It is owned by the Indre-et-Loire Departmental Council.
www.touraine.fr
1 - a variety of melon
Exhibition
RonsART and the arts: from 22/6 to 22/9/2023
Read more : In the Loire Valley, in the footsteps of Ronsard: the Château de la Possonnière
Text : Michèle Lasseur
