Eglise Notre-Dame
ChurchHidden Treasure
Eglise Notre-Dame, located in Vitré (Département 35), is a Renaissance château built in the 16th century. The monument is currently closed to visitors.
Key facts
- Type
- Church
- Period
- Renaissance (16th century)
- Location
- Vitré, Département 35, Bretagne
- Visit
- Closed to visitors
- GPS
- 48.1250, -1.2117
- Mérimée Reference
- PA00090899
A flamboyant jewel in the heart of Vitré, Notre-Dame church boasts a south-facing façade with seven gables that is unique in Brittany, punctuated by pinnacles and crowned by an exterior pulpit of rare elegance.
History
Set in the heart of the medieval town of Vitré, Notre-Dame church is one of the finest examples of flamboyant Gothic architecture in Brittany. Its jagged silhouette, sharp pinnacles and finely chiselled portals make it a monument in a class of its own, capable of rivalling the great collegiate churches of the Val-de-Loire for the boldness of its lines and the richness of its sculpted decoration. The presence of an external pulpit - a rare ornament in France - gives the building an absolute singularity that never fails to surprise visitors. The interior, vast and luminous, reveals several centuries of accumulated devotion: side chapels with star-shaped vaults, coloured stained glass windows filtering the Breton light, antique furniture scattered throughout the aisles. The nave and side aisles, rebuilt in the 15th century, are remarkably coherent in style, while the choir, a remnant of the original Romanesque building, bears witness to the long continuity of this place of worship. Visiting Notre-Dame de Vitré also means immersing yourself in the atmosphere of a town that has preserved its medieval fabric better than almost any other in Brittany. The church sits alongside the half-timbered houses of the rue de la Baudrairie, the castle towers and the ramparts that still encircle the old town. The southern square, facing the succession of gables, is one of the most photographed architectural tableaux in Ille-et-Vilaine. The building is just as suited to lovers of medieval architecture as it is to those curious about local history: the side chapels contain works of art, epitaphs and funerary slabs that tell the story of the great Vitré families of the 15th and 16th centuries. A visit to Vitré would be incomplete without stopping at length in front of the south facade, which in itself is a veritable open-air stone museum.
Architecture
The church of Notre-Dame de Vitré is fully in the Breton flamboyant Gothic style, with its taut vertical lines, blind arcatures and bracketed motifs running along the façades. The most spectacular feature is the south façade, with its seven triangular gables separated by high pinnacled buttresses: a rhythmic, almost musical composition that has no exact equivalent in the region. It is on this same façade that the exterior pulpit hangs, a work of delicate sculpture whose openwork panels and twisted columns illustrate the skills of local stonemasons at the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries. The plan of the building follows the classic layout of a large Breton collegiate church: a nave with three aisles, side aisles, a transept and a polygonal choir, the windows of which were redesigned in the 15th century to enlarge the openings and make the interior more luminous. The central tower, powerful and square, is topped by a stone spire rebuilt in 1858, which accentuates the verticality of the whole and allows the church to be seen from the surrounding hills. The more restrained west facade is arranged around an arched doorway, the carved wooden leaves of which date from 1586 and are a rare example of late 16th-century religious woodwork. Inside, the star vaults and side chapels, richly endowed by local bourgeois families, create an intimate and refined atmosphere typical of the large merchant parishes of prosperous Brittany.
Related Figures
Robert Ier de Vitré — seigneur fondateur de l'église vers 1060Les moines de l'abbaye Saint-Melaine de Rennes — gestionnaires du prieuré dès 1116Les seigneurs de Laval-Montmorency — maîtres de Vitré aux XVe-XVIe siècles, mécènes du grand chantier gothiqueProsper Mérimée — inspecteur général des Monuments Historiques, qui contribue au classement de l'église sur la liste fondatrice de 1840Les maîtres maçons bretons anonymes — artisans des campagnes de 1480-1500 et 1530-1540
Tags
Nearby castles
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Eglise Notre-Dame located?
Eglise Notre-Dame is located in Vitré, Département 35 department, Bretagne region, France.
When was Eglise Notre-Dame built?
Eglise Notre-Dame dates back to a period built during the Renaissance (16th century).
Is Eglise Notre-Dame open to visitors?
Eglise Notre-Dame is currently closed to visitors.
