II. A tower of ink. Iconography

   Illuminators, painters, draughtsmen and engravers have depicted the Tower of Nesle from various angles, all of which offer as many original perspectives, sometimes showing us the center of Paris, the island of the Cité or the Pont-Neuf, sometimes the Louvre and the surrounding countryside. Very often, the tower of Nesle is seen in the background, as a visual element of identification of Paris or as a point of reference in the urban landscape.
   The second part thus brings together the illuminated manuscript, the engraved views of Paris in the sixteenth century, the sumptuous prints of Jacques Callot or Israël Silvestre to give the image of a tower «of after nature». But it also presents the work of engravers, illustrators, painters – often lovers of archaeology or even archaeologists themselves – of the 19^_th century, the Hoffbauer, Viollet-le-Duc or Robida, authors of real (re)romantic creations of the tower then disappeared for more than two centuries.

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Maître de Jacques de Besançon,  « L’Annonciation », in: Missel for use by Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois, circa 1480-1490, manuscript on parchment.

   This missal was commissioned by Pierre de Cerisay, dean of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois from 1474 to 1507. Of the twenty miniatures that remain, two present in the background the view one could have at the end of the 15^_th century from the collegiate church of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois. Thus, the Annunciation makes it possible to distinguish through the window, beyond the Seine, the characteristic silhouette of the tower of Nesle and its trunnion.

MAZARINE : MS 410

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