\b0 The banks of the Maine at the site of the ancient capital of Anjou are lined with the powerful wall
s and towers of one of the most imposing medieval fortresses in Europe. This castle was built on older foundations during the reign of St Louis, between 1230 and 1240. In the form of an irregular pentagon with a perimeter of 660 meters (720 yards), it is
flanked by seventeen round towers that range from 40 to 60 meters (130 to 200 feet) in height and ringed by moats that were cut into the rock at the end of the fifteenth century, now occupied by beds of beautiful flowers. In the inner courtyard, the cha
pel of Sainte-GeneviΦve has a very fine vault from the fifteenth century, in the flamboyant Gothic style with sculpted keystones. The castle's large gallery houses a Museum of Tapestries that is one of the most important and richest in the world, with ma
sterpieces from the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. They include the \i Tapestry of the Apocalypse\i0 , made between 1373 and 1380, which still has 107 meters (351 feet) of its original length of 168 meters (551 feet).\par
