Cathédrale de la Nativité-de-Marie de Vence

Vence

The church was built here on the site of a Roman temple, and the walls recall it: ancient inscriptions and fragments remain visible, alongside Carolingian slabs with interlace and birds set into the pillars. The present building took shape in the 11th and 12th centuries: five aisles, a mixture of Romanesque, Gothic and Baroque, a 12th-century Saint-Lambert tower to the left of the entrance, and a crenellated Romanesque chevet and bell tower. Two bishops keep the memory of the place. Véran, bishop in the 5th century, long rested in a 5th-century Gallo-Roman sarcophagus that became the altar of his chapel, known as the ‘tomb of Saint Véran’. Lambert, bishop in the 12th century, who died in 1154, has his own tomb, bearing his epitaph, as his altar; the reliquary busts of the two saints are brought together in his chapel. Between 1455 and 1460 the Grasse joiner Jacques Bellot carved the chapter's choir stalls, now in the gallery: uprights, armrests and above all misericords form one of the finest ensembles of woodcarving in 15th-century Provence. In the 17th century the Bishop of Vence was a poet. Antoine Godeau, one of the first members of the Académie française, whom the salons of the Hôtel de Rambouillet nicknamed ‘Julie's Dwarf’, received the bishopric of Grasse from Richelieu, sought to unite the two dioceses and, forced to choose in 1653, took Vence, where he died. The treasury, reached through the choir stalls, keeps one of his chasubles.

Wikipédia — Cathédrale de la Nativité-de-Marie de Vence ↗

Getting there : Place Clemenceau, 06140 Vence. Free entry; according to the regional tourist board, open on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday from 11 am to 1 pm and from 2.30 pm to 5.30 pm, and on Sunday from 2.30 pm to 5.30 pm, times not guaranteed (to be checked). The choir stalls are in the gallery; the baptistery houses a mosaic by Chagall, Moses Saved from the Waters. Wheelchair accessible on the ground floor only.

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

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