inSPIREd Sunday

Sally and Beth host inSPIREd Sunday!  

May 2019 - Paris France

The neighbourhood around the church is a great way to spend a day.
It played a very important role in the literary, philosophical and artistic world of Paris in the 19th and 20th centuries. Claude Monet and Auguste Renoir lived in small studio apartments in the neighborhood, along with Pablo Picasso. Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvoir, and Jean-Paul Sartre could be often found at the Café de Flore. Writers Honoré de Balzac and George Sand were fond of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, as well as painter Édouard Manet.
Halfway through a major five-year restoration, the Église Saint-Germain-des-Prés is the oldest church in Paris.

Click here for an excellent article on the church's history and the restoration project. 

A few rebuildings and a relatively brief desacralisation aside, the Église Saint-Germain-des-Prés has presided over the neighbourhood in exactly the same spot for more than 1,450 years, since the time of the first kings of France. King Childebert, the son of Clovis I, founded the church and monastery in 543, far enough from the marshy banks of the Seine to avoid flooding but close enough to profit from the river basin’s fertile meadows (prés). First named Saint-Vincent, the edifice was founded to house holy relics and the tunic of Saint Vincent of Saragossa, Spain, and was headed by Bishop Germain d’Autun. After his death in 576, Autun was sainted and the church rededicated to Saint Germain (who was buried there, along with all the Merovingian kings, until the late 8th century, when they were reinterred at Saint-Denis, Paris’s official royal necropolis).

Saint-Germain-des-Prés has an impressive organ that was build in 1679 and installed in this church in 1805-1810. However it was completely reconstructed several times after that. Concerts are regularly held in this old church which has  great acoustics.

I can't believe I can't find out more about this intriguing sculpture.