Fontaine Sainte-Julitte et son enceinte
MonumentHidden Treasure
Fontaine Sainte-Julitte et son enceinte, located in Remungol (Département 56), is a Renaissance château built in the 16th century. The monument is currently closed to visitors.
Key facts
- Type
- autre
- Period
- Renaissance (16th century)
- Location
- Remungol, Département 56, Bretagne
- Visit
- Closed to visitors
- GPS
- 47.9331, -2.8997
- Mérimée Reference
- PA00091635
Nestling in Remungol, this 16th-century votive fountain boasts a granite architecture of rare elegance, with a gable featuring sculpted hooks, engaged columns and sacred statues watching over an ancestral spring.
History
In the heart of the village of Remungol, in the deep Morbihan region, the Sainte-Julitte fountain is one of the finest examples of Breton votive architecture from the late Renaissance. Hidden away to the east of the parish church, accessible from an unassuming alleyway, it is striking for the sophistication of its sculpted decoration, unusual for a building of this type and size. What immediately distinguishes this monument from the multitude of sacred fountains dotting the Breton countryside is the quality of its architectural composition. The large basket-handle niche, the engaged columns with finely worked capitals, the gable with leafy hooks inherited from the flamboyant Gothic style and the statues standing on their cylindrical bases make up a veritable open-air altarpiece, treated with the care of a high altar. The fountain is set in a rectangular enclosure whose floor is lower than the surrounding ground level. Six granite steps, fitted with a barrier designed to keep animals away from the pool, invite visitors to descend towards the spring as if into a sacred space in its own right. This arrangement, designed to protect the purity of the water while organising processions and devotions, reveals a liturgical conception of the secular space. A visit to this fountain is an invitation to slow down. In the silence of its granite enclosure, surrounded by moss and light filtered through the surrounding foliage, you can appreciate what spring water meant to a rural community in Brittany: a vital resource, a place to heal, a place to pray and to gather. The statue of Saint Julien, housed in its shell-adorned niche, continues to preside over this balance between the sacred and the everyday.
Architecture
The Sainte-Julitte fountain is organised around a coherent architectural programme that blends late flamboyant Gothic and Breton Renaissance influences. The centrepiece is a large basket-handle niche - a characteristic arch of the Gothic-Renaissance transition - which houses the basin fed by the spring. This niche is flanked by two engaged corner columns whose curves and rings are reminiscent of the models used in Breton workshops in the 16th century. The whole is crowned by a granite roof, the front slope of which forms a triangular gable, decorated with finely sculpted leafy hooks - a motif inherited from the flamboyant Gothic repertoire, which was still very much alive in Brittany at the end of the 16th century. On either side of the gable, the two columns extend beyond the ridge line and end in cylindrical bases supporting statues, creating a lively vertical silhouette. At the back of the main niche, a scallop shell in relief forms the decoration of a second interior niche housing the statue of Saint Julien, a secondary patron saint or a frequent local hagiographic confusion with Saint Julitte. The rectangular enclosure surrounding the fountain is an architectural feature in its own right: its granite walls define an enclosed liturgical space, with the floor lowered by six degrees to create a dramatic setting for the spring. The barrier protecting access to the animals, built into the staircase, is a functional detail typical of Breton fountains, which are both religious and utilitarian. The whole ensemble forms a highly coherent architectural microcosm, built entirely of grey Morbihan granite.
Related Figures
Sainte Julitte (Giulitta) — martyre cappadocienne du IVe siècle, à qui la fontaine est dédiée et dont le culte thaumaturgique est profondément enraciné en BretagneSaint Julien — évoqué dans la niche principale, figure hagiographique associée au culte de l'eau et des pèlerinages en Bretagne intérieureLes maîtres tailleurs de granit morbihannais — artisans anonymes du XVIe siècle à qui l'on doit la qualité exceptionnelle de la sculpture des crochets et des colonnesLes conservateurs des Monuments Historiques bretons — responsables de l'inscription patrimoniale de 1934, pionniers de la reconnaissance du patrimoine rural breton
Tags
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Fontaine Sainte-Julitte et son enceinte located?
Fontaine Sainte-Julitte et son enceinte is located in Remungol, Département 56 department, Bretagne region, France.
When was Fontaine Sainte-Julitte et son enceinte built?
Fontaine Sainte-Julitte et son enceinte dates back to a period built during the Renaissance (16th century).
Is Fontaine Sainte-Julitte et son enceinte open to visitors?
Fontaine Sainte-Julitte et son enceinte is currently closed to visitors.