The horseshoe staircase at Fontainebleau looks like the entrance to a single grand royal residence. Walk farther, however, and the palace begins to reveal a less tidy and more compelling story. Courtyards meet at different angles; a medieval tower stands beside Renaissance façades; gardens lead away toward a long canal. This was a home that successive rulers altered to suit their ambitions, rather than a palace conceived in one sweep.
In the forest south of Paris, Fontainebleau was used by French kings from the twelfth century and remained a residence of rulers into the nineteenth. Its art, apartments and grounds make it possible to follow changes in power and taste across those centuries. UNESCO inscribed the palace and park on the World Heritage List, recognizing, among other things, the meeting of French traditions and Italian Renaissance ideas.
