Eglise Sainte-Innocente
ChurchHidden Treasure
Eglise Sainte-Innocente, located in Sainte-Innocence (Dordogne), 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
- Sainte-Innocence, Dordogne, Nouvelle-Aquitaine
- Visit
- Closed to visitors
- GPS
- 44.7245, 0.4101
- Mérimée Reference
- PA00082843
At the heart of the Périgord, the église Sainte-Innocente blends a Romanesque bell tower with a Renaissance porch adorned with curly-leaf carvings and small columns with pointed arches — an architectural palimpsest of rare singularity.
History
Nestling in the village of Sainte-Innocence, in the heart of the Périgord Noir, the church of Sainte-Innocente is one of those small rural churches in France whose discretion conceals an unsuspected wealth of history and architecture. Listed as a Historic Monument since 1948, it bears witness to several centuries of religious life and the stylistic changes that have taken place without completely erasing the traces of the past. What makes this monument truly unique is precisely its stratification: a bell tower of Romanesque origin, sober and massive, which houses a Renaissance porch built in the 16th century. This porch, adorned with carefully sculpted curly cabbages, a coat of arms that is now hammered out - probably the victim of revolutionary convulsions - and columns whose pointed arches intersect in a delicate interlacing, is the most remarkable and most photographed feature of the building. Inside, the visitor is confronted with a radical transformation that is as much a challenge as it is a surprise: the pillars, cut off at the height of the capitals, and the ribbed vaults replaced by a false vault, bear witness to a total interior remodelling, probably undertaken in the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries. Far from being an amputation of history, this state of affairs offers us an unexpected space where past ambitions can be read. The short but dense tour will delight lovers of medieval and Renaissance architecture as much as walkers in search of authentic Périgord. The village of Sainte-Innocence, peaceful and green, surrounds the church in a rural setting typical of the Bergerac region, far from the tourist crowds of neighbouring towns.
Architecture
The church of Sainte-Innocente offers a fascinating dialogue between the Romanesque and the Renaissance, two styles separated by several centuries but coexisting in the same volume. The bell tower, the centrepiece of the exterior building, is in the Romanesque tradition: its blond limestone walls, characteristic of the Périgord region, its measured verticality and sober gills make it a discreet but solid landscape landmark. It was in this bell tower that a Renaissance porch of great sculptural quality was carved in the 16th century: curly cabbages, a curly plant motif typical of the Gothic-Renaissance transition in the south-west, punctuate the doorframe; slender columns form pointed arches intersecting in a star shape, creating an elegant network of stone ribs. Inside, the space was radically reconfigured in the modern era. The pillars, which once supported ribbed vaults, were cut off at the level of the capitals, leaving only the lower part of the supports. The Gothic vaulting has been replaced by a false vaulting, possibly made of plaster or brick, giving the nave a more intimate and less spectacular atmosphere, but allowing the ambition of the original medieval project to be read in negative. The surviving capitals, even if truncated, probably still contain interesting sculpted motifs, evidence of the work of the region's stonemasons in the 15th and 16th centuries.
Related Figures
Commanditaire noble local anonyme (XVIe siècle) — mécène du porche Renaissance, dont le blason martelé orne encore le porcheArtisans tailleurs de pierre périgourdins (XVe-XVIe siècle) — auteurs des sculptures de choux frisés et des colonnettes entrecroiséesRévolutionnaires locaux (1789-1799) — responsables du martelage du blason noble sur le porcheInspecteurs des Monuments Historiques (1948) — acteurs de la reconnaissance patrimoniale officielle de l'édifice
Tags
Nearby castles
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Eglise Sainte-Innocente located?
Eglise Sainte-Innocente is located in Sainte-Innocence, Dordogne department, Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, France.
When was Eglise Sainte-Innocente built?
Eglise Sainte-Innocente dates back to a period built during the Renaissance (16th century).
Is Eglise Sainte-Innocente open to visitors?
Eglise Sainte-Innocente is currently closed to visitors.
