Chapelle Notre-Dame-des-Fontaines

La Brigue

Isolated deep in a small valley of the Alpes-Maritimes, this chapel quite literally owes its name to the springs that rise at its feet. Local legend tells that in the Middle Ages, while drought and earthquakes were striking the region, Countess Eudoxie of Tende announced one Christmas Day that the dried-up springs would flow again if an expiatory chapel were built here. A first building, put up near the village, is said to have collapsed in a single night; rebuilt on the very spot where the springs rise, it held firm, and the water began to flow again — giving Notre-Dame-des-Fontaines its name. But the true treasure of the place is discovered inside: between 1490 and 1492, the Piedmontese painter Giovanni Canavesio unfolded across nearly 220 m² a cycle of frescoes of rare intensity, tracing the Passion of Christ through to the Last Judgement, completed by the paintings of the choir by Giovanni Baleison, rediscovered only in 1959. This meeting of a legend of springs regained and one of the finest ensembles of 15th-century Alpine wall painting has earned the chapel its nickname of "Sistine Chapel of the Alps", drawing around 12,000 visitors a year to a site that is nonetheless far from anywhere.

Getting there : 4–5 km from the medieval village of La Brigue, on the old mule track linking La Brigue to Triora (Italy); car park nearby, chapel open to visitors

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

Ambient sound