Cathédrale Sainte-Marie et cloître
Place Pasteur, 64100 Bayonne
- Pyrénées-Atlantiques
- Nouvelle-Aquitaine
Sainte-Marie Cathedral stands in the heart of the city, on the small hill overlooking the Nive. It is one of the largest Gothic churches in the Pyrenean region (80 m long, 33 m wide, 26 m high under the vault in the central vessel).
After the 1258 fire that destroyed the first Romanesque cathedral, the construction of the new Gothic building stretched from the second half of the 13th century to the beginning of the 16th century. The influence of the great cathedrals of northern France (like that of Soissons) can be seen in the ambulatory. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the south bell tower was endowed with the present belfry and an imperial dome and the choir with a carpeted decoration surrounding the liturgical space. This monumental ensemble arrived very mutilated by time and men until the nineteenth century.
In the second half of the century, the exterior architecture was modified and completed and its interior decoration was decorated in a neo-Gothic style. The work w
Tags
Édifice religieux, Patrimoine mondial de l'UNESCO, Monument historique, Villes et Pays d'art et d'histoire
©M.Prat - Visit Bayonne
