Maison ancienne dite Maison des Dames de la Foi ou ancien hôtel Arnaud de Laborie
MonumentHidden Treasure
The Romanesque jewel of old Périgueux, this 12th-century residence is home to some rare medieval murals with neo-Testamentary iconography, providing exceptional evidence of Périgord wall art that has almost disappeared.
History
In the heart of Périgueux, where the medieval street once covered the ancient Roman road, stands one of the best-preserved Romanesque houses in Périgord. The Maison des Dames de la Foi - also known to scholars as the Hôtel Arnaud de Laborie - is immediately striking for the sobriety of its facade: carefully carved limestone, round arched bays with fine mouldings, and the quiet density typical of buildings that have survived eight centuries without boasting. What makes this monument truly unique is the dizzying overlap of uses it has housed: house of the Temple at the end of the Romanesque period, aristocratic town house, convent for teaching nuns, then a tenement building divided into workers' housing. Each layer has left its mark, visible to those who know how to look at the walls. The experience of visiting is one of intimate proximity to the medieval material. The mural paintings discovered in 1996 during an archaeological study of the building are an aesthetic and intellectual shock: scenes from the New Testament executed at the end of the 13th or beginning of the 14th century, with astonishingly well-preserved colours, envelop the primitive first floor with an almost liturgical presence. This is a far cry from the spectacular castle; this is the intimacy of a civilisation. The setting adds to the emotion: Périgueux, an episcopal city with a rich Gallo-Roman and medieval heritage, offers this house a coherent heritage environment, between Saint-Front cathedral with its Byzantine domes and the alleyways of the listed Saint-Front district. The Maison des Dames de la Foi is a precious fragment of an urban fabric dating back to Antiquity.
Architecture
The Maison des Dames de la Foi is a Romanesque house with a trapezoidal floor plan - a shape dictated by the plot constraints of the medieval street - whose four load-bearing walls of Périgord limestone have survived the centuries in a remarkable state of preservation. The original layout comprises two superimposed levels, with the ground floor probably devoted to commercial or management activities, and the first storey housing living or performance spaces. The exterior elevation features the characteristic vocabulary of Romanesque civil architecture in Périgord: round-arched bays with carefully matched keystones, prismatic mouldings, and a sober surface treatment in which the quality of the stonework acts as an ornament. In the 16th century, the addition of an extra storey and an internal dividing wall altered the silhouette and interior layout without compromising the integrity of the Romanesque structure. This intervention illustrates the plasticity of Périgord medieval houses, capable of absorbing the changes in design of each century. The building's hidden treasure lies in its wall paintings, discovered in 1996 on the first floor. Dating from the late 13th or early 14th century, these painted decorations are inspired by the iconographic repertoire of the New Testament - scenes from the life of Christ, figures of apostles, perhaps hagiographic episodes - treated in a palette of ochres, reds and blues typical of late Romanesque and early Gothic art in the South-West. Their presence in a civil dwelling, rather than in a religious building, constitutes a documentary and artistic rarity of the highest order in terms of our knowledge of the visual culture of the Périgord region in the Middle Ages.
Related Figures
Chevaliers du Temple (ordre du Temple) — premiers occupants présumés de la maison aux XIIe-XIIIe sièclesFamille Arnaud de Laborie — nobles périgordins donateurs de la maison aux Dames de la Foi en 1680Jeanne de Lestonnac — fondatrice de la congrégation des Dames de la Foi en 1607, nièce de MontaigneMichel de Montaigne — figure tutélaire du Périgord, lié par parenté à la fondatrice des Dames de la Foi
