Ancienne Cathédrale Sainte-Anne d'Apt

Apt Cathedral (Cathédrale Sainte-Anne d'Apt) is a former Roman Catholic church located in the town of Apt in Provence, France. The cathedral is a national monument.

Now the church of Saint Anne, the former cathedral was the seat of the bishop of Apt until the French Revolution. Under the Concordat of 1801 the diocese was divided between the Dioceses of Avignon and Digne.

History

The cathedral is believed to have been built on the site where Saint Auspice was buried. Tradition holds that Auspice became the custodian of the relics of St. Anne, which it is said he placed in a subterranean grotto to protect them from desecration by the barbarians. The church became a pilgrimage site. Anne of Austria came there in 1623. The church was the ecclesiastical seat of the diocese of Apt, until the diocese was dissolved in 1801.

Architecture

The cathedral combines a variety of architectural styles from Romanesque to Baroque. The lower crypt is part of the original 1st-century Roman building, used as a place of worship as early as the Carolingian era, and consists of a corridor leading to a vault where, according to local legend, Saint Anne's veil was found.

The upper crypt dates back to about 1056 and consists of a small nave (around 8 metres or 26 feet) and an apse.

Text imported from Wikipedia article "Apt Cathedral" and modified on July 23, 2019 according to the CC-BY-SA 4.0 International license.