Saint Michael's Church

The church's chevet faces east, a particularly common practice, as people turn towards Jerusalem [and the rising sun] to celebrate mass. The building illustrates the specificities of Provençal art by its arcaded bell tower and the sobriety of its sculpted decorations, which are part of the Romanesque style, a style that also explains the simplicity of its plan (a single nave with no aisles or ambulatory), as well as the thickness of the walls and the narrowness of the openings. The sober and massive aspect of the church is enlightened by the luminous warmth of the stone used for its structure.

From the same period, the sculpted tympanum that decorates its portal evokes the archangel Saint-Michel crushing the forces of evil symbolized by the serpent. If the general aspect of the building is typical of the Romanesque art, the vaults on ribbed crossings of the nave and the apse illustrate one of the first breakthroughs of the Gothic style in Provence. The church was therefore the object of several successive construction campaigns, even adding a bell tower in the 15th century, crowning the façade and used as a clock until the 17th century. Romanesque-Gothic building. Classified as a historical monument