Collégiale Saint-Vincent

A superb Romanesque building magnificently restored recently and well worth a visit. Its construction started around the year 1000 and lasted for nearly 200 years and is the most noteworthy example of Romanesque style in the eastern part of the country. The church is truly at the heart of the town, which it dominates with its powerful shape with two towers. It is an imposing building, as it has been a place of pilgrimage to St. Vincent, patron saint of the town, since its foundation in the 6th century. The church was the seat of a powerful community of canons until the end of the 18th century.
The interior bathes in a soft light thanks to the colouring of the walls in a pink tinted beige/white. The ceiling is in light oak. In contrast with the bare lines of the Romanesque architecture, the interior adornment is primarily renaissance and baroque, such as the central rood screen in coloured marble, the fine carved oak stalls of the choir, the pulpit (1670) and the high altar, surmounted by a reliquary containing the relics of St. Vincent.
Among the more precious works of art is a 14th century statue of the Virgin suckling the child on the right of the central rood screen. It is a rare example in religious sculpture of the closeness of mother and child and a sign of the humanisation of religion. In the passage alongside the choir is ‘the placing in the tomb,' an assembly of sculptures of six persons accompanying the body of Christ and indicating by their attitudes and expressions their emotions and inner feelings. It is an anonymous work but close to the art of Roger de la Pasture.
Attached to the church is a museum containing its treasures.

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