Maison dite de Notre-Dame-de-Rumengol
MonumentHidden Treasure
Maison dite de Notre-Dame-de-Rumengol, located in Landerneau (Département 29), 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
- Landerneau, Département 29, Bretagne
- Visit
- Closed to visitors
- GPS
- 48.4493, -4.2490
- Mérimée Reference
- PA00090037
In the heart of Landerneau, this 17th-century ashlar house keeps watch over the former diocesan border thanks to a corner niche housing the Virgin of Rumengol - a stone sentinel between Cornouaille and Léon.
History
Nestling in the urban fabric of Landerneau, the house known as Notre-Dame-de-Rumengol is one of those discreet buildings that condense, in their stones, centuries of religious, administrative and social history. Built in the 17th century in the purest style of the Breton bourgeoisie of the time, it is initially striking for the elegant sobriety of its architecture: a carefully dressed ashlar facade, punctuated by modillioned cornices and crowned with pedimented dormers that testify to the care taken in the composition. What really sets this house apart from its neighbours is the sculpted niche in the corner. Contemporary with the building, it houses a statue of Notre-Dame-de-Rumengol, a Marian figure venerated throughout western Brittany, whose shrine is a few leagues to the south, in the Cranou forest. This presence is not insignificant: the house once marked the official boundary between the dioceses of Cornouaille and Léon, two of Brittany's nine historic bishoprics. The Virgin of the corner thus played the role of a sacred boundary marker, an invisible frontier between two ecclesiastical worlds. To visit this house is to plunge into the daily life of Landerneau's merchant bourgeoisie during the Grand Siècle. Landerneau, then a busy port on the Elorn, was a lively commercial and intellectual centre, and its merchants' houses rivalled each other in refined architectural detail. The house of Notre-Dame-de-Rumengol is part of this urban emulation, while carrying an additional symbolic charge, that of Breton faith and sacred geography. Listed as a Historic Monument since 1928, the building can be admired from the street, offering the attentive walker the spectacle of remarkably well-preserved Breton civil architecture. Lovers of urban heritage, popular religion and local history will find it a source of contemplation and reflection on how ordinary buildings can become extraordinary when they come into contact with human history and the sacred.
Architecture
The house at Notre-Dame-de-Rumengol is a fine example of 17th-century Breton civil architecture, a style that blends the robustness of local tradition with classical influences from Paris and Italy via engravings and architectural treatises circulating in the cultured circles of the time. Built entirely of ashlar, the façade's regularity and quality of workmanship betray the social ambitions of its patron. The vertical composition is punctuated by cornices with modillions - the small projecting brackets supporting the eaves - which testify to a knowledge of the ancient orders re-read by the French architecture of the Grand Siècle. The pedimented dormers that pierce the roof add a classical elegance to the whole, their stone triangles standing out against the slate slope in an architectural vocabulary common to the mansions of the wealthy Breton bourgeoisie. The corner of the house is the focal point of the building: the carefully crafted niche frames the Marian statue in an architectural device that is both functional and symbolic, transforming a simple facade return into a veritable urban altar. The whole reflects the mastery of Breton stonemasons, whose tradition dates back to the great cathedrals and medieval castles of the region.
Related Figures
Propriétaire bâtisseur anonyme du XVIIe siècle — commanditaire bourgeois ayant fait ériger la maison et sa niche marialeNotre-Dame de Rumengol — figure mariale tutélaire dont la statue orne la niche d'angleÉvêques de Léon — prélats dont le diocèse s'arrêtait à cet angle de rueÉvêques de Cornouaille — prélats de l'autre diocèse historique délimité par cet emplacementInspecteurs des Monuments Historiques (1928) — auteurs de l'arrêté d'inscription protégeant l'édifice
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Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Maison dite de Notre-Dame-de-Rumengol located?
Maison dite de Notre-Dame-de-Rumengol is located in Landerneau, Département 29 department, Bretagne region, France.
When was Maison dite de Notre-Dame-de-Rumengol built?
Maison dite de Notre-Dame-de-Rumengol dates back to a period built during the Renaissance (16th century).
Is Maison dite de Notre-Dame-de-Rumengol open to visitors?
Maison dite de Notre-Dame-de-Rumengol is currently closed to visitors.