Ancienne collégiale, actuellement église Sainte-Marie-Madeleine, located in Champeaux (Département 35), is a Renaissance château built in the 16th century. The monument is currently closed to visitors.
A flamboyant Gothic gem nestling in Ille-et-Vilaine, the church of Sainte-Marie-Madeleine in Champeaux boasts exceptional Renaissance choir stalls and a monumental Espinay tomb of rare magnificence.
In the heart of the peaceful village of Champeaux, in Ille-et-Vilaine, stands one of the most beautiful collegiate churches in eastern Brittany, founded in the 15th century by a great noble family and enriched throughout the Renaissance with interior furnishings of exceptional quality. The building, discreet from the outside, is a revelation to those who enter: an interior space of rare stylistic coherence, where the flamboyant Gothic of the nave meets the first stirrings of the French Renaissance. What sets Sainte-Marie-Madeleine apart from so many other provincial collegiate churches is the remarkable integrity of its 16th-century liturgical furnishings. The stalls, of which there are an impressive number, form a double row sculpted with a decorative inventiveness worthy of the great cathedrals. Expressive misericords, elaborate cheeks, openwork canopies: every detail deserves close attention. The choir stalls are complemented by a master glass whose warm colours illuminate the choir with golden light, offering visitors one of those moments of grace that can only be found in places that have been preserved from excessive modernisation. The Espinay tomb, the centrepiece of the building, takes pride of place in the choir. This funerary monument of great sculptural ambition bears witness to the rank and power of the founding family, and is an exceptional document of Breton-Angersian funerary art in the mid-sixteenth century. The recumbent figures and mourners that surround it rival the finest workshops in the Loire in terms of finesse of execution. A visit to Champeaux is an intimate experience. Far from the crowds that beset the great cathedrals, here visitors can take the time to sit in the bay, let the coloured light from the glass roof rise up, and decipher the heraldic emblems engraved in the stone. The village itself, with its half-timbered houses and peaceful atmosphere, is the perfect setting for this heritage treasure, listed as a Monument Historique since 1910.
The church of Sainte-Marie-Madeleine in Champeaux is part of the Breton flamboyant Gothic tradition, characterised by the sobriety of the exterior volumes and the concentration of ornamentation on the structural elements. The plan of the building follows the classic layout of a collegiate church with a single nave or aisles, with a slightly raised chancel corresponding to the reconstruction of 1540. The plan of the building follows the classic layout of a collegiate church with a single nave or aisles, and a slightly raised chancel corresponding to the reconstruction of 1540. The masonry, typical of the bocage region of Ille-et-Vilainais, combines local granite, the preferred material of Breton builders, with quoins and surrounds in tuffeau, a soft limestone imported from the Loire Valley that lends itself admirably to ornamental sculpture. The interior reveals the harmonious coexistence of two major stylistic periods. The nave retains the elegant severity of 15th-century Gothic, with its moulded pillars and ogee vaults stretching towards the light. The choir, rebuilt in 1540, introduces the first vocabulary of the Renaissance: antique-style pilasters, foliage friezes and capitals with leafy decor inspired by Greco-Roman antiquity. This stylistic transition, visible in the stone itself, makes Champeaux a rare architectural document of the penetration of the Renaissance in Brittany. The furniture is the real architectural and artistic treasure of the building. The stalls, dating from 1540 and forming a double row on either side of the choir, display a remarkable sculptural imagination in their mericords, cheeks and backs. The main window by Gilles de la Croix-Vallée illuminates the back of the choir with intensely coloured figurative scenes. As for the tomb of the Espinays by Jean de Lespine, it occupies a side chapel or a bay in the choir, imposing its sculpted mass of marble and stone, with its giants in armour and allegorical figures in tears, in a funerary setting of great theatricality.
Ancienne collégiale, actuellement église Sainte-Marie-Madeleine is located in Champeaux, Département 35 department, Bretagne region, France.
Ancienne collégiale, actuellement église Sainte-Marie-Madeleine dates back to a period built during the Renaissance (16th century).
Ancienne collégiale, actuellement église Sainte-Marie-Madeleine is currently closed to visitors.
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Champeaux
Bretagne
