While we are invited to rediscover the nearby territories without travelling too far, the Centre vendéen de recherches historiques (Sorbonne-University Scientific Council) is publishing a new book on the history, heritage and development of Fontenay-le-Comte. "À la découverte de Fontenay-le-Comte" is a book designed to offer a comprehensive look at the town, from prehistory to the present day, in all its diversity of landscapes and heritage.

When I was offered this project on the history and cultural heritage of Fontenay-le-Comte, I thought it would be interesting to draw on what already existed and not simply evoke a past as glorious as often looked back on with nostalgia. Writing about a city is not just writing about people and monuments, it is also about trying to make people understand a global structure and to inscribe, for example, social housing and public art in the continuation of the primitive constitution of an urban body.

At 27, this book is my first. It is the result of a long observation of the city from a first internship in 2012 to regular work at the Château de Terre-Neuve in recent years. It was important to give as open a vision as possible of the heritage, contemporary art and stories that make Fontenay the city it is today. Explaining the breakthrough of a street in the 18th century, the process leading up to the construction of the museum, but also the industrial development, is to give each reader a way of relating to what is visible as a gateway to a wider history.

I'm excited about my first book!

"If speaking of Fontenay-le-Comte often boils down to evoking the humanist figures of the 16th century, we can also measure, thanks to this synthesis, how much, after an already flourishing Middle Ages, the city was shaped by the 17th and 18th centuries, evolving like a provincial city in the face of national and European currents. »

On the agenda: The constitution of an urban body, the Wars of Religion and reconstruction, the modern and contemporary city, the museum and its collections, the château de Terre-Neuve, ancient and contemporary public art, etc.

À la découverte de Fontenay-le-Comte, 16 €

Boek te koop in de boekhandel en bij www.histoire-vendee.com

William Chevillon
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