VAUX-LE-VICOMTE

chteau near Melun, France, designed in 1656 by Louis Le Vau for Nicolas Fouquet, who was finance minister to King Louis XIV. The chteau, finished in 1661, is considered to be one of the masterpieces of French Baroque residential architecture. The garden, designed by Andr Le Ntre, was the prototype of the gardens that Le Ntre later designed for Louis XIV at Versailles. Many critics, however, prefer the ingenuity of Vaux-le-Vicomte to the repetition of Versailles.