VI St. Apollinaire de Valence
Valence, the Valentia of the Romans, is variously supposed to be situated in southeastern France, Provence, and the Cevennes. For this reason it will be difficult for the traveller to locate his guide-book reference thereto.
It is, however, located in the Rhône valley on the very banks of that turgid river, and it seems inexplicable that the makers of the red-covered couriers do not place it more definitely; particularly in that it is historically so important a centre.
The most that can usually be garnered by the curious is that it is “well built in parts, and that those parts only are of interest to the traveller.” As a matter of fact, they are nothing of the sort; and the boulevards, of which so much is made, are really very insignificant; so, too, are the cafés and restaurants, to which far more space is usually given than to the claim of Valence as an early centre of Christianity.
Valence is not a great centre of population, and is appealing by reason of its charming situation, in a sort of amphitheatre, before which runs the swift-flowing Rhône. There is no great squalor, but there is a picturesqueness and charm which is wholly dispelled in the newer quarters, of which the guide-books speak.
There is, moreover, in the cathedral of St. Apollinaire, a small but highly interesting “Romanesque-Auvergnian” cathedral; rebuilt and reconsecrated by Urban II., in the eleventh century, and again reconstructed, on an entirely new plan, in 1604. Besides this curious church there is a “Protestant temple,” which occupies the former chapel of the ancient Abbey of St. Rufus, that should have a singularly appealing interest for English-speaking folk.
The préfecture occupies another portion of the abbey, which in its various disintegrated parts is worthy of more than passing consideration.
The bishopric was founded here at Valence in the fourth century—when Emelien became the first bishop. The see endures to-day as a suffragan of Avignon; whereas formerly it owed obedience to Vienne (now Lyon et Vienne).
The ancient cathedral of St. Apollinaire is almost wholly conceived and executed in what has come to be known as the Lombard style.
The main body of the church is preceded on the west by an extravagant rectangular tower, beneath which is the portal or entrance; if, as in the present instance, the comprehensive meaning of the word suggests something more splendid than a mere doorway.
There has been remarked before now that there is a suggestion of the Corinthian order in the columns of both the inside and outside of the church. This is a true enough detail of Lombard forms as it was of the Roman style, which in turn was borrowed from the Greeks. In later times the neo-classical details of the late Renaissance period produced quite a different effect, and were in no way comparable to the use of this detail in the Lombard and Romanesque churches.
In St. Apollinaire, too, are to be remarked the unusual arch formed of a rounded trefoil. This is found in both the towers, and is also seen in St. Maurice at Vienne, but not again until the country far to the northward and eastward is reached, where they are more frequent, therefore their use here may be considered simply as an interpolation brought from some other soil, rather than an original conception of the local builder.
Here also is seen the unusual combination of an angular pointed arch in conjunction with the round-headed Lombard variety. This, in alternation for a considerable space, on the south side of the cathedral. It is a feature perhaps not worth mentioning, except from the fact that both the trefoil and wedge-pointed arch are singularly unbeautiful and little in keeping with an otherwise purely southern structure.
The aisles of St. Apollinaire, like those of Notre Dame de la Grande at Poitiers, and many other Lombardic churches, are singularly narrow, which of course appears to lengthen them out interminably.
If any distinctive style can be given this small but interesting cathedral, it may well be called the style of Lyonnaise.
It dates from the twelfth century as to its foundations, but was rebuilt on practically a new ground-plan in 1604.
To-day it is cruciform after the late elongated style, with lengthy transepts and lofty aisles.
The chief feature to be observed of its exterior is its heavy square tower (187 feet) of four stories. It is not beautiful, and was rebuilt in the middle nineteenth century, but it is imposing and groups satisfactorily enough with the ensemble round about. Beneath this tower is a fine porch worked in Crussol marble.
There is no triforium or clerestory. In the choir is a cenotaph in white marble to Pius VI., who was exiled in Valence, and who died here in 1799. It is surmounted by a bust by Canova, whose work it has become the fashion to admire sedulously.