IX St. Véran de Cavaillon
“It is the plain of Cavaillon which is the market-garden of Avignon; from whence come the panniers of vegetables and fruits, the buissons d’artichauts, and the melons of ‘high reputation.’”
Such is the rather free paraphrase of a most charmingly expressed observation on this Provençal land of plenty, written by an eighteenth-century Frenchman.
If it was true in those days, it is no less true to-day, and, though this book is more concerned with churches than with potagerie, the observation is made that this fact may have had not a little to do with the early foundation of the church, here in a plenteous region, where it was more likely to prosper than in an impoverished land.
The bishopric was founded in the fifth century by St. Genialis, and it endured constantly until the suppression in 1790.
All interest in Cavaillon, in spite of its other not inconsiderable claims, will be centred around its ancient cathedral of St. Véran, immediately one comes into contact therewith.
The present structure is built upon a very ancient foundation; some have said that the primitive church was of the seventh century. This present cathedral was consecrated by Pope Innocent IV. in person, in 1259, and for that reason possesses a considerable interest which it would otherwise lack.
Externally the most remarkable feature is the arrangement and decoration of the apside—there is hardly enough of it to come within the classification of the chevet. Here the quintuple flanks, or sustaining walls, are framed each with a pair of columns, of graceful enough proportions in themselves, but possessed of inordinately heavy capitals.
An octagonal cupola, an unusual, and in this case a not very beautiful feature, crowns the centre of the nave. In reality it serves the purpose of a lantern, and allows a dubious light to trickle through into the interior, which is singularly gloomy.
To the right of the nave is a curiously attenuated clocher, which bears a clock-face of minute proportions, and holds a clanging bourdon, which, judging from its voice, must be as proportionately large as the clock-face is small.
Beneath this tower is a doorway leading from the nave to the cloister, a beautiful work dating from a much earlier period than the church itself.
This cloister is not unlike that of St. Trophime at Arles, and, while plain and simple in its general plan of rounded arches and vaulting, is beautifully worked in stone, and admirably preserved. In spite of its severity, there is no suggestion of crudity, and there is an elegance and richness in its sculptured columns and capitals which is unusual in ecclesiastical work of the time.
The interior of this church is quite as interesting as the exterior. There is an ample, though aisleless, nave, which, though singularly dark and gloomy, suggests a vastness which is perhaps really not justified by the actual state of affairs.
A very curious arrangement is that the supporting wall-pillars—in this case a sort of buttress, like those of the apside—serve to frame or enclose a series of deep-vaulted side chapels. The effect of this is that all of the flow of light, which might enter by the lower range of windows, is practically cut off from the nave. What refulgence there is—and it is not by any means of the dazzling variety—comes in through the before-mentioned octagon and the upper windows of the nave.
In a chapel—the gift of Philippe de Cabassole, a friend of Petrarch’s—is a funeral monument which will even more forcibly recall the name and association of the poet. It is a seventeenth-century tomb of Bishop Jean de Sade, a descendant of the famous Laura, whose ashes formerly lay in the Église des Cordeliers at Avignon, but which were, it is to be feared, scattered to the winds by the Revolutionary fury.
At the summit of Mont St. Jacques, which rises high above the town, is the ancient Ermitage de St. Véran; a place of local pilgrimage, but not otherwise greatly celebrated.