The Church of St. Philibert in Tournus, in the Saône-et-Loire region of France, is a former Benedictine abbey church. It is regarded as a work of national importance for Romanesque architecture and was listed among French historic monuments in 1840. Tradition says a tenth-century abbot began it, but the current view dates the earliest parts to the eleventh century.
It is an example of the early First Romanesque style of Burgundy and sits within a fortified enclosure, and defense appears to have shaped its design. The west front is heavy masonry with few windows. The nave has barrel vaulting on tall cylindrical columns, and the transverse barrel vaults avoid lateral thrust. The church also holds a twelfth-century Black Madonna.
The abbey was closed in the seventeenth century, and the church became a collegiate church. After the French Revolution it was secularized, and Catholic worship resumed after the Concordat of 1801.
Comments