Visiting the La Psalette cloisters in Tours 

• The north gallery. Its ribbed vaults penetrating into the supporting pillars are very rare in the Touraine region, and are examples of the Flamboyant Gothic style. The two doorways date from the first Renaissance. 

• The staircase. It is a smaller version of the staircase built by François I for Blois château around 1520.

• The first floor. From the terrace you can see the apse of the cathedral built in the 13th century, the towers which were completed in 1547, and the west (15th century) and north (16th century) cloister galleries. The copyists’ scriptorium (1520) is in the Renaissance style. The library which housed the chapter’s books was one of the richest in France.

Understanding the La Psalette cloisters in Tours

• The origin of the name. The La Psalette cloisters are named after the psalms sung by the neighbouring music school. 

• A setting for La Comédie Humaine. In the 19th century, Balzac installed Abbot Birotteau in a wing of the cloister, turned into a dwelling, in his novel Le Curé de Tours.

• Cathedral cloisters (13th to 16th century). Don’t miss the 13th-century stained-glass windows in the apse chapels or the tomb of the children of Charles VIII and Anne de Bretagne, sculpted around 1500.