Église Sainte-Marie de Mirande

Mirande

Mirande is a bastide, a new town founded in 1281 with the help of the abbot of Berdoues, and its church is the joint work of its two co-lords, the abbot and the Count of Astarac. They had it built at the end of the 14th century and the beginning of the 15th, in a southern Gothic of austere and defensive forms: the quadrangular bell tower, with three storeys flanked by five turrets, also served as a watchtower, and an outside staircase led to a defensive terrace connected to the roof space of the nave. The building work was not yet finished when an unexpected title fell upon the building. In 1410, in the midst of the Great Western Schism, the Pope designated the church of Mirande as the seat of a bishopric that he founded for the benefit of the abbey of Berdoues. The bishopric did not survive: three years later the bull of erection was revoked. But this short-lived diocese earned the church a title of cathedral that usage has preserved for it. To support the bell tower, flying buttresses were thrown across the rue de l'Évêché, forming an arch; it serves as an outer porch in front of the imposing portal at the foot of the tower. The nave, thirty-eight metres long, seventeen wide and twenty-five high, has seen its side aisles converted into chapels: the Purgatory chapel keeps 15th-century stained-glass windows, Saint Michael and the Virgin and Child, and the Blessed Sacrament chapel a monumental altarpiece with marble columns, framing an Assumption of the Virgin painted by Antoine Coypel in 1680.

Wikipédia — Église Sainte-Marie de Mirande ↗

Getting there : 4 place Louis-Durrieux, 32300 Mirande, less than ten minutes' walk from the liO ‘Mirande – Fessenheim’ coach stop (Auch–Tarbes line); parking nearby. Free entry (Tourisme Occitanie); opening times to be checked with the town hall (05 62 66 52 87) or the tourist office.

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

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