Built in the mid 17th century by Nicolas Fouquet, finance minister to Louis XIV, it became the forerunner to the Chateaux de Versailles. Humiliated by being hosted in a home more lavish than his own palaces, Fouquet was arrested and the collaborative team of the architect Louis Le Vau, the painter decorator Charles Le Brun, and landscape architect Andre Le Notre were commissioned by Louis XIV to renovate, redecorate and landscape Versailles to its current grandeur.