The royal estate of Château-Gaillard, commissioned by Charles VIII upon his return from the First Italian War, is located in Amboise in the Loire Valley. It includes, notably, a royal residence that is one of the Loire Valley châteaux and extends at the base of the southern slope of the Châteliers promontory, near the Clos-Lucé.
Château-Gaillard is a royal estate built for Charles VIII upon his return from the First Italian War in 1496. Admiring the Poggio Reale villa of Ferdinand the Catholic in Naples, he wished to have a comparable residence near his château in Amboise.
The Château-Gaillard estate served as a 'laboratory' for the French Renaissance: it was the first acclimatization garden in France, featuring the creation of the first royal orangery in France, the first Renaissance garden in France designed by Dom Pacello da Mercogliano, which included the first axial landscape perspective and the first 'French formal garden' parterres. It was also the first French adaptation of Italian Renaissance architecture, inspired by the Medici villas in Florence.
The royal estate of Château-Gaillard was listed as a historical monument in 1963 for its chapel and gardens located in front of the château. After five years of restoration, the estate was opened to the public in 2014.
The Church of St Donatus name refers to Donatus of Zadar, who began construction on this church in the 9th century and ended it on the northeastern part of the Roman forum. It is the largest Pre-Romanesque building in Croatia.
The beginning of the building of the church was placed to the second half of the 8th century, and it is supposed to have been completed in the 9th century. The Zadar bishop and diplomat Donat (8th and 9th centuries) is credited with the building of the church. He led the representations of the Dalmatian cities to Constantinople and Charles the Great, which is why this church bears slight resemblance to Charlemagne's court chapels, especially the one in Aachen, and also to the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna. It belongs to the Pre-Romanesque architectural period.
The circular church, formerly domed, is 27 m high and is characterised by simplicity and technical primitivism.