Puits de Moïse (chartreuse de Champmol)

Dijon

In the grounds of what is now the La Chartreuse hospital survives one of the summits of European sculpture of the Middle Ages. Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, founded the Charterhouse of Champmol between 1378 and 1383 to serve as the necropolis of the Valois dukes of Burgundy, and made it an artistic centre where the greatest artists of the North worked. At the centre of the great cloister, the Dutch sculptor Claus Sluter, assisted by his nephew Claus de Werve, raised, according to the ducal archives, between 1396 and 1405 a monumental calvary whose polychromy was entrusted to the painter Jean Malouel. The cross and the upper figures disappeared at the end of the 18th century when the small building that protected them collapsed — a few fragments are kept in the archaeological museum of Dijon — but the base survives: six prophets carved in the round, Moses, David, Jeremiah, Zechariah, Isaiah and Daniel, each bearing a scroll announcing the Passion of Christ, of a realism so striking that it earned the name "Well of Moses". Sold as national property at the Revolution, the charterhouse was dismantled, and an asylum was installed there between 1839 and 1844. Listed as a monument historique in 1840 and restored from 1842, the Well can be visited today in the heart of the hospital grounds, together with the carved portal of the chapel, another masterpiece by Sluter.

Getting there : Grounds of the La Chartreuse hospital, 1 boulevard Chanoine Kir, Dijon; open daily 9am–5.30pm, guided tours via the tourist office (03 80 44 11 44)

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound