The site

 

In ancient times, the 'seventh military post' of the road connecting Vienne to Milan was located at the site of Septème. A fortified castle, whose ruins still exist today, was built there in the 10th and 11th centuries.

In the late 13th century, the village of Septème was fortified by the Counts of Savoy, who then built a kilometre-long enclosing wall punctuated by many arrow loops. At that time, Septème was one of the stakes of the secular struggle between the House of Savoy and the states of the Dauphiné for control of the Viennois. The castle originated as a 12th-century fortified house which was later raised to become the present-day tower. In the 14th and 15th centuries, other buildings were constructed around an inner courtyard, which became the main square of the town. This site still has the prison and an old 60-m deep well intended to provide a water supply to the population in the event of a siege.

In the 16th century, under the influence of the Italian Renaissance, a gallery with porticoes was built, as well as two storeys of loggias connecting the tower to the round tower. This castle offers the contrast between imposing defensive architecture and an inner courtyard with Renaissance loggias, arches and galleries. Surrounded by ramparts, Septème castle is undoubtedly the most beautiful building in the Pays Viennois. Because it originated on the site of the seventh military post on the Roman road to Italy, via Bourgoin, the little place in the shadow of the castle was named 'Septème' in the High Middle Ages.

Built in the 11th century and renovated in the 16th, it was handed over by the Beauvoir de Marc family, powerful local lords, to the Counts of Savoy, and became a part of the Delphinal domain through the Treaty of Paris, which ended the Delphino-Savoyards conflicts, in 1355. In the park, the ruins of a vast square tower, the small town that grew at the foot of the castle was enclosed by a rampart during the Genevois period in the latter half of the 13th century. This well-preserved enclosure, which its large arrow loops and one of its three doors, encloses the space of the beautiful French-style garden which extends over the areas where the houses used to be.

In the 15th century, the current building was finally constructed between the villagers' dwellings and the old tower; it was arranged around a courtyard adorned in Renaissance times with arches and galleries; the prison is still located there, beside an old 60-m deep well intended to supply water to the town in the event of a siege.  Some illustrious visitors stayed at this castle. In July 1564, Charles IX and his mother, Catherine de Médicis, stayed there. Once the property of Count André d'Albon, Mayor of Lyon under the Empire, Septème now belongs to his descendants: the de Kergolay family.