The cartouche is an architectural ornament decorating the façade of a building. It consists of a frame highlighting a central part that can accommodate inscriptions. This element can be painted, engraved or sculpted in stone, marble or other more modest materials such as metal and wood. Some cartridges are said to be blind and their central surface has remained empty.
Coming from the Italian cartoccio which means paper cone, the cartridge is originally a cardboard plated at the corner of the maps of geography intended to house a title and a legend and of which a corner is rolled up thus forming a cone. Used by the Egyptians in their hieroglyphics, the cartridge multiplies in the Middle Ages and embellishes the buildings. The most ornamented and decorated are those made in the Renaissance. Their use became widespread from the seventeenth century and each owner seized it by sculpting a fragment of his life.
In Cenon, if the walker slows down and looks up, he can see cartridges of all shapes, witnesses of a past time. Some allow to identify houses by their location or their environment, others specify a construction date, some display currencies when others let glimpse a semblance of intimacy.
The members of the Association of Friends of the Cenonnais Heritage carried out a methodical and detailed work of census of these architectural singularities.