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Bastide (planned town)Tarn-et-Garonne

Montauban

Montauban

Dimensions
The place Nationale, heart of the orthogonal plan of 1144, rebuilt from 1614 with its double covered arcades of brick; the Pont Vieux over the Tarn, built from 1304 to 1335, once flanked by two towers and a chapel; the church of Saint-Jacques, completed in 1280, whose bell tower still bears the marks of the siege of 1621; the former bishop's palace, now the musée Ingres, with the rib-vaulted salle du Prince Noir; the classical cathedral of Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption of the 18th century.
Period
New town of 1144; church of Saint-Jacques completed in 1280; Pont Vieux of 1304-1335; English occupation until 1368; place Nationale rebuilt from 1614; sieges of 1621 and 1629; cathedral of the 18th century.
What stands there
Administrative capital of the Tarn-et-Garonne since 1808; 62,487 inhabitants in 2022. The foundation of 1144 is often cited as the starting point of the age of the bastides, but is now held to be an isolated prototype; historians take Cordes, in 1222, as the first bastide. Birthplace of Ingres and of Olympe de Gouges.

Montauban, the "white mount", Mons Albanus, was founded in October 1144 by Alphonse Jourdain, count of Toulouse, near the abbey of Montauriol, on a slope above the Tarn: "a new town often considered one of the first bastides of the South-West", endowed with a foundation charter and an orthogonal plan converging on a central square, today's place Nationale. Historians qualify the title: Wikipedia holds the foundation to be "an isolated event, exceptional and innovative certainly", with no link other than the urban model to the wave of 13th-century bastides, of which Cordes, in 1222, is the first recognised. A bishopric in 1317, occupied by the Black Prince until 1368, a Protestant capital that held out for more than two months against Louis XIII in 1621, the home town of Ingres, Montauban keeps its square with covered arcades rebuilt from 1614, its Pont Vieux of 1304-1335 and its church of Saint-Jacques of 1280.

Further reading

Getting there : Free access to the town centre; the place Nationale, the Pont Vieux and the quays of the Tarn can be walked. The musée Ingres Bourdelle occupies the former bishop's palace.

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

See it on the map OpenStreetMap Directions

Ambient sound

Montauban
Renhour48 · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons

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All places — Tarn-et-Garonne (23).