Le baptistère Saint-Jean de Poitiers

Poitiers

When Radegund founded her monastery in Poitiers in the 550s, the baptistery already existed: it is dated to the second half of the 4th century or the early 5th, when the city was becoming Christian. It was a rectangular hall around an octagonal pool with three steps, into which people went down to be baptised by immersion. The Merovingian period transformed it profoundly, adding annexes and then, in the 7th century, dividing it into two halls ending in apses; it is one of the few buildings where one can still see what the architecture of that time was like, keeping Roman habits without keeping their rules. The paintings, which are later, range from the 11th to the 13th century: Christ in Majesty, apostles, saints including Constantine and Maurice. In 1834, urban planning works threatened to have it demolished; the Société des antiquaires de l'Ouest opposed this and the State bought it the same year. Since 1838 it has served as a lapidary museum: Merovingian sarcophagi of the 6th-8th centuries from all over the Vienne and the Deux-Sèvres have been gathered there, many of them decorated with crosses in the manner of the Poitou workshops. The baptistery was never a royal necropolis; it is better than that, the everyday setting of Merovingian faith.

Wikipédia — Baptistère Saint-Jean de Poitiers ↗

Getting there : Rue Jean-Jaurès, in the historic centre, right next to the cathedral: you get there on foot. The baptistery is open in the afternoon from Tuesday to Sunday from October to April, with longer hours in spring and daily, morning and afternoon, from late June to late September (to be checked). Admission charged at a modest price, payment in cash according to the tourist office (to be checked). Half an hour is enough, but take the time to look at the sarcophagus lids.

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

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