Cathédrale Saint-Lazare d'Autun

Autun

Where Vézelay had the sister, Autun wanted the brother. Since the 10th century the old cathedral of Saint-Nazaire at Autun had kept a body that it held to be that of Lazarus, the friend whom Jesus had raised and whom the Provençal legend made die bishop of Marseille; historians recognise in him rather Lazarus of Aix, a 5th-century bishop buried at Saint-Victor in Marseille, whose name was enough. The pilgrims of Vézelay, two days' march away, willingly came to see the brother after the sister, and the crowds were such that Bishop Étienne de Bâgé decided in 1120 to build a new pilgrimage church: Pope Innocent II consecrated it in 1130, the relics were transferred to it in 1146, and it became a cathedral in the following century. On its west portal a sculptor signed his work beneath the feet of Christ, "Gislebertus hoc fecit" — a Last Judgement in which the damned howl, in which a demon weighs the souls with a cheat's hand, and in which Saint Michael sets the scales right; inside, the capitals of the nave tell the flight into Egypt, the sleep of the Magi woken by the angel, the hanging of Judas. The tomb of Lazarus, a small carved structure raised in the choir, was demolished in 1766 by canons who found it Gothic; its figures, recovered, are in the Musée Rolin. What the cathedral keeps is the Burgundian half of a family of the Gospel that two regions divided between them.

Wikipédia — Cathédrale Saint-Lazare ↗

Getting there : Place du Terreau, at the top of the town (car park at the Champ-de-Mars, then ten minutes' climb). Open every day; the chapter room, upstairs, displays the capitals taken down. The Musée Rolin, next door, keeps the fragments of the tomb of Lazarus and the reclining Eve of Gislebertus.

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

Ambient sound