XI St. Siffrein de Carpentras
The tiny city of Carpentras, most picturesquely situated on the equally diminutive river Auzon which enters the Rhône between Orange and Avignon, was a Roman colony under Augustus, and a bishopric under St. Valentin in the third century.
A suffragan of Avignon, the papal city, the see was suppressed in 1790.
The Bishops of Carpentras, it would appear, were a romantic and luxury-loving line of prelates, though this perhaps is aught against their more devout virtues.
They had a magnificent palace overhanging the famous “Fountain of Vaucluse,” and repaired thither in mediæval times for the relaxation which they evidently much appreciated. They must have been veritable patrons of literature and the arts, as Petrarch and his fellows-in-art were frequently of their household.
The ancient cathedral of St. Siffrein is dedicated to a former bishop of Carpentras, who died in the sixth century.
As this church now stands, its stones are mainly of the early sixteenth century. The west façade is entirely without character, and is pierced at the pavement with a gross central doorway flanked by two others; poor copies of the Greco-Romain style, which, in many of its original forms, was certainly more pleasing than here. Each of these smaller doorways have for their jambs two beautifully toned columns of red jasper, from a baptistère of which there are still extensive remains at Venasque near by.
This baptistère, by the way, and its neighbouring Romanesque and Gothic church, is quite worth the energy of making the journey countryward, eleven kilometres from Carpentras, to see.
It is nominally of the tenth century, but is built up from fragments of a former Temple to Venus, and its situation amid the rocks and tree-clad hilltops of the Nesque valley is most agreeable.
The portal on the south side—though, for a fact, it hardly merits the dignity of such a classification—is most ornately sculptured. A figure of the Virgin, in the doorway, it locally known as Notre Dame des Neiges.
Much iconographic symbolism is to be found in this doorway, capable of various plausible explanations which shall not be attempted here.
It must suffice to say that nowhere in this neighbourhood, indeed possibly not south of the Loire, is so varied and elaborate a collection of symbolical stone-carving to be seen.
There is no regularly completed tower to St. Siffrein, but a still unachieved tenth-century clocher in embryo attaches itself on the south.
The interior presents the general effect of Gothic, and, though of late construction, is rather of the primitive order.
There are no aisles, but one single nave, very wide and very high, while the apse is very narrow, with lateral chapels.
Against the western wall are placed four paintings; not worthy of remark, perhaps, except for their great size. They are of the seventeenth or eighteenth century. A private corridor, or gallery, leads from this end of the church to the episcopal palace, presumably for the sole use of the bishops and their guests. The third chapel on the right is profusely decorated and contains a valuable painting by Dominique de Carton. Another contains a statue of the Virgin, of the time of Louis XIV., and is very beautiful.
A tomb of Bishop Laurent Buti (d. 1710) is set against the wall, where the apse adjoins the nave.
Rearward on the high-altar is a fine painting by an unknown artist of the Italian school.
The old-time cathedral of St. Siffrein was plainly not of the poverty-stricken class, as evinced by the various accessories and details of ornamentation mentioned above. It had, moreover, in conjunction with it, a most magnificent and truly palatial episcopal residence, built by a former cardinal-bishop, Alexandri Bichi, in 1640. To-day it serves the functions of the Palais de Justice and a prison; in the latter instance certainly a fall from its hitherto high estate. Built about by this ancient residence of the prelates of the Church is also yet to be seen, in much if not quite all of its pristine glory, a Gallo-Romain arc de Triomphe of considerable proportions and much beauty of outline and ornament.
As to period, Prosper Mérimée, to whom the preservation of the ancient monuments of France is largely due, has said that it is contemporary with its compeer at Orange (first or second century).
The Porte d’Orange, in the Grande Rue, is the only relique left at Carpentras of the ancient city ramparts built in the fourteenth century by Pope Innocent VI.