Romanesque art

Southern Burgundy offers a concentration oof Ramanesque churches among the gretest in France. A good many saw their architecture influenced by the great Romanesque centres of Tournus and Cluny

Bissy-la-mâconnaise: surronded by typical Mâconnais houses, this late Romaneque church is preceed by a rustich porch. Massive tower and nave with beautiful apprent roof timbers.

Chapaize: remarkable 11th and 12th C. church . Imposing rectangular and pyramydal shaped tower, 35 meters high, decorated with Lombard bands. Except for the apse, the chrch belongs entirely to the “early Romanesque” period.

Charnay-lès-Mâcon: originally Romanesque, the church has been perfectly restored, although greatly altered. The nave, choir, apse and base of the tower date back to the 12th C.

Clessé: 11th C. church, covered with lombar bands. Octagonal tower with fine 12th C. decoration.

Cluny

Laizé: only the apse and the church tower are Romanesque. Interesting feature: an unusual corbelled wooden gallery was added to the tower during the 15th C., to be used as a look-out post.

Mâcon: Saint-Vincent & Saint-Clément

Péronne: 11th C. church. Original : the two square turrets to the north are built on the site of an ancient castle. It was here that Gontran, king of Burgundy during the 6th C., ordered that Sundays and Christian Feast Days should be compulsory days of rest.

Sancé: 12th C. building with adjoining flaboyant Gothic chapel housing the magificient tombstone of a local lord. Interesting 19th C. wooden reredos.

Tournus: the abbey-church of Saint-Philibert remains the indisputed epitome of "early Romanesque Art" and the development of this style. The church has an austere façade, with two elegant 12th C. towers. The oldest parts of the nathex, surmounted by a chapel, ant the crypt. Thanks to the openings in the transverse barrel vaults and to the pink stone, the nave is exceptionnaly light for a Romanesque building. Recent discovery of Romanesque mosaics portraying part of the zodiac. Contemporary liturgical furniture by the master goldsmith Goudji. The cloisters, the chapter house, the refectory and the cellar complete the monsstery buildings.