We had to go to the "prefecture" to renew my wife's visa, it was fairly early in the morning, a cool breeze reminds us that we are in Autumn, and this massive monument was standing like a proud colosseum, unshaken by the trying times we live in, and will probably be standing here "Ad Vitam Aeternam" as the Romans used to say.
Sainte-Marie Cathedral
What is striking at first, is the size of the building. My first thought is that it must have taken at least few hundreds years to build it, and indeed, Its construction lasted two hundred years (1489 - 1680), which also which explains the melting pots of styles:
The entirety of the building reminds us of the decadence of gothic style, while the facade is inspired by the Renaissance, framed by 2 towers of 44 m high. This is one of the last Gothic cathedrals in France and one of the richest.
Before the construction of the cathedral in the 15th century, a church was built in the middle of the 9th Century.
Ayrard was appointed archbishop, for the first time, on June 13, 879, by Pope John VIII The archiepiscopal palace was built north of the cathedral around 1100.
Archbishop Austinde had a new cathedral built which was consecrated in 1121. Of these buildings from the Romanesque period only a part of the chapter house remains, located in the southeast.
The first stone of the present cathedral was laid on July 4, 1489 at the bottom of the chapel of Montesquiou, under the archbishopric of François de Savoie.
I didn't know any of this, but I found a PDF document in French with incredible information, where you will find in great details on the chronology of the construction.
From 1617 onwards, the work on the cathedral is very well documented, and several architects will be in charge of its construction, each parts being added throughout the years by different craftmen.
On the picture above, this is the Great Organ of the cathedral.
The Great Organ of the cathedral Sainte-Marie of Auch is supposed to be one of the most beautiful in France, of course I am not a specialist, but it looked magnificent. If I can compare it to the one in the Basilica in Toulouse, I would say that it looked a bit Elvish.
The original instrument was the work of Jean de Joyeuse (1694). While the case is original, the instrumental part was renovated in 1954, which raised controversy. In 1996, the Monuments Historiques undertook a second restoration consisting of a reconstruction by the organ builder Jean-François Muno of the organ of 1694. The organ was inaugurated on October 9, 1998 by Michel Chapuis, Odile Pierre and André Isoir.
The glass work was made by Arnaut de Moles around 1513. It is very difficult to find information about it online.
A historian named Paul Raymond seems to have traced his birth in Saint-Sever. He was born in 1460, in a bourgeois family, a painter by trade, he made the stained glass windows of the Benedictine Abbey of Saint-Sever, founded in the 10th century by the Count of Gascogne.
It's still unsure if it's the same man that created these 18 masterpieces in the Auch cathedral, as there is also a name confustion, as several other master craftsmen with an identical name were working in the area (Moles, Desmoles, Demoles).
It would be probably a good idea to compare the glass work at the Abbey if Saint-Sever and Sainte-Marie Cathedral, to see if it's the same guy.
From what I could see, most of Arnaut's work is historiated stained glass windows telling biblical scenes. You will go through some classic themes, like "the original sin", "the crucifixion", "the apparitions of the Ascension".
To be honest, we were more interested in the projection of light on the walls, and the colours, than the actual paintings on the glass.
Once again it's a matter of timing, but as it was probably 9am, the sunlight was coming from the side, and it brought a very eerie atmosphere, though still very soothing.
It was really hard to imagine that it was someone's daily gig 500 years ago, I am sure it's still pretty close to what the original was. I did some research and it seems that there has been some renovation of the stain glass in 2019, but it was mainly to conserve it, and make the colours more vibrant.
Let's talk about the style of the stain glass for a second. It's really influenced by the Italian Renaissance with its antique forms, arches, multiple columns and most importantly the attention to detail, especially in the face expression.
Of course, on some of the pictures, I played around with the light and contrasts, the saturation, the color temperature, but nothing can really transcribe the way it looks like "in real life", when the light goes through the glass, I don't think there is a camera powerful enough to capture that yet.
What stroke me the most, is the opulence of the place, it shows the power of its Archbishopric at the time,you can imagine that it was a point of convergence not only for the pilgrims as it's a stop on routes of Santiago de Compostela in France, but also that hundreds of years ago, it was probably the heart of the city where painters, writers, farmers, masons, were gathered in front of the square, which is now empty.
It was not at all planned, and very enjoyable to be surprised by the architecture, the stain glass, and we got lucky that it was even open in the first place :) I wasn't even thinking of writing a post, and then I started reading about some facts about the cathedral, and few hours later I was totally hooked 🤣
and trying to find more information about the glass maker, there were also some interesting facts about 1500 sculpted characters inside the cathedral that I completely forgot to mention before, so it's messy to mention it now, who does that sort of thing?
Thanks for reading, until next time
Ed