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From neolithic times, the Promontoire des Chatelliers rock spur has been an ideal observation post at the confluence of the Loire and one of its affluents, the Amasse.
Since the Iron Age, this site was a place of craftwork and commercial ex changes. The town became the main city of the Turones, the celtic tribe who gave their name to the future area of Touraine. The site was fortified from this period onwards. The fortifications were progressively improved with the help of the rock.
In 503, Amboise entered into history when Clovis, King of the Francs and Alaric, King of the Visigoths met here.

Beginning with François I's reign, while the court generally stayed at Fontainebleau and the Louvre, the sovereign still appreciated Amboise, up to Henri II. The monarch's stays were more rare from Henri III's reign. The Court left the Touraine region definitively for Ile-de-France under Henri IV. From that time onwards, the Château d'Amboise was only a simple staging post for the Bourbon Kings.
The residence welcomed Louis XIII and Louis XIV several times. His grandson, Philippe, Duke of Anjou, also stayed here on the way to Spain from the II to 13 December 1700 before acceding to the throne of Spain under the name of Philippe V .

Nicolas Fouquet , the disgraced former superintendent of finance, was the involuntary guest of the Château d'Amboise. After giving a sumptuous feast in honour of the King of France in his château of Vaux-Ie-Vicomte, he was arrested on 5 September 1661 at Nantes by the captain of the musketeers, the famous d'Artagnan. On his way to the Fort of Pignerol (in the Savoy Alps) where he died on 23 March 1680, he was interned at Amboise from 4 to 16 December 1661. Tradition holds that he was put in the cell situated "above the entrance door of the château". His passage to Amboise became the subject of a pilgrimmage for Jean de La Fontaine , his friend, who came to the château in August 1663.

Joan of Arc passed through in 1426 on her way to Orleans to the Battle of Patay.

The Amboise conspiracy was the conspiracy of Condé and the Huguenots in 1560 against Francis II, Catherine de' Medici, and the Guises

The city is famous for the Clos Lucé manor house where Leonardo da Vinci lived (and ultimately died) at the invitation of Francis I of France, whose Château d'Amboise, which dominates the town, is located just 500 meters away. The narrow streets contain some good examples of timbered housing.

http://www.chateau-amboise.com/anglais/historique.html, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amboise