Cathédrale Saint-Léonce de Fréjus

Fréjus

Tradition attributes the founding of the church to Saint Léonce, Bishop of Fréjus at the beginning of the 5th century: the friend of John Cassian, who dedicated to him the first part of his Conferences, and the neighbour of Honorat, who came to establish his monastery on Lérins to be near him. From that time there survives, to the south-west of the church, the 5th-century baptistery, one of the oldest in France: its eight corner columns, with Corinthian capitals, were taken from Roman buildings, and the architect Jules Formigé rediscovered it in the 20th century. The cathedral sets two naves side by side, that of Saint-Étienne, of the 11th and 12th centuries, originally reserved for the bishop, and that of Notre-Dame, which partly takes up the original church. One of the bells in the bell tower was a gift made in 1303 by Jacques Duèse, Bishop of Fréjus since 1300 and future Pope John XXII. But the surprise lies to the north, in the cloister of the canons, constituted as a chapter as early as 1038. A stone vault had been planned there, judged too heavy; around 1350 it was replaced by a larch ceiling from the forest of Boscodon, whose coffers were painted one by one: hybrid beings, monsters, saints, busts, scenes of daily life and figures of clerics, a decoration without equivalent in a French cloister. Of the twelve hundred or so original coffers, about four hundred remain visible according to the tourist office, more than three hundred according to the Wikipedia article.

Wikipédia — Cathédrale Saint-Léonce de Fréjus ↗

Getting there : Episcopal group at 48 rue du Cardinal-Fleury, in the old town. The cathedral is open every day, free entry (tourist office). The cloister and the baptistery, State property managed by the Centre des monuments nationaux, can be visited with a ticket: €7 according to the tourist office, free for 18 to 25-year-olds from the European Union; seasonal opening times, closed on Mondays out of season (to be checked).

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

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