I am reading a book from the 1860s which makes some reference to a 'Schloss Saleve bei Genf' (Château de Salève?), apparently built in the thirteenth century, and I can't make sense what he is talking about. I can't find information about it --I don't know if the name was changed, or what I am doing wrong.

Any possible help will be much appreciated.

Saleve is a mountain close to Geneva. There are a couple of castles in the region, most notably some which belonged to the Savoy family between the 11th to 14th century.

I guess the author mixed up the name of the mountain the castle was on with the name of it... or he simply made one up if it is a fictional story.

Without more info is it hard to pinpoint which one he was talking about: http://maps.google.com.sg/maps?q=cha...3%A8ve&t=m&z=9

There is a chateau on top of Saleve, but the name is Chateau de Monnetier. Here is a link, http://cabaret.over-blog.org/article-23818385.html
The blurb about the chateau says it was burned down by the Bernese in 1589 and remained in ruins for 300 years. It was rebuilt in 1855 as a hotel and it still remains today.

Thanks very much for both replies.

After a bit of research I found the text the author is basing his text on --he did mistake the name when actually referring to (what his reference author mentions as) the "château des seigneurs de Mornay [same as Mornex], au Saleve, près Genève". Somewhere else I read that in 1826 it was "une jolie ruine".

Based on what I read in wikipedia.de (below) and the fact that the author mentions some probably 13th century stove tiles found there, it might be something different from Chateau de Monnetier. If I can't get any more precise than this, this is reasonably OK, so thanks very much again for the pointers.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monnetier-Mornex
Seit dem 10. Jahrhundert war das Gebiet den Bischöfen von Genf, später den Grafen von Genf unterstellt. Monnetier und Mornex (im Mittelalter Mornacum oder Mornay) wurden im 12. Jahrhundert erwähnt. Sowohl in Mornex als auch in Monnetier befand sich je ein Schloss. 1659 kamen die Ortschaften an Savoyen und teilten von dieser Zeit an dessen Schicksal.

you just needed to click one more link on the wikipage you posted: Not Monnetier, the text says Mornay. The chateau in Mornex was indeed in ruins in the 19th century and a Swiss scientist bought the hill it was on and build a villa on top of the ruins - and found the "Académie suisse des sciences naturelles" there...

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mont_Gosse#Burg_Mornex

!!!

And that is a 100% certainty. Mr. Gosse, the scientist, is the one who found the allegedly 13th century tiles in the ruin, as I read in the (uncredited) reference author my author was evidently basing himself on.

This is great. Thank you very much again.