VI — Église de Grasse
Grasse is more famed for its picturesque situation and the manufacture of perfumery than it is for its one-time cathedral, which is but a simple and uninteresting twelfth-century church, whose only feature of note is a graceful doorway in the pointed style.
The diocese of Grasse formerly had jurisdiction over Antibes, whose bishop—St. Armentaire—ruled in the fourth century.
The diocese of Grasse—in the province of Embrun—did not come into being, however, until 1245, when Raimond de Villeneuve was made its first bishop. The see was suppressed in 1790.
There are, as before said, no accessories of great artistic worth in the Église de Grasse, and the lover of art and architecture will perforce look elsewhere. In the Hôpital are three paintings attributed to Rubens, an “Exaltation,” a “Crucifixion,” and a “Crowning of Thorns.” They may or may not be genuine works by the master; still, nothing points to their lack of authenticity, except the omission of all mention thereof in most accounts which treat of this artist’s work.