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Avignon bills itself as “the City of the Popes.” As with all marketing
hype, there’s truth amidst the puffery. Avignon was indeed the home of
nine popes and the center of the Catholic Church for most of the 14th
century. But no pope has actually lived in Avignon for nearly 600
years. That’s not much of a problem, since Avignon still has much to
offer within its walls.
Even without a resident pope, The Palace of the Popes is still the
major attraction in Avignon. It’s massive, ornate, and pretentious,
befitting a ruler at the apex of the society that built it. You can spend
a whole day exploring it inside and out— or relaxing in the large
square in front of it while watching the parade of fellow explorers.
Besides a tourist attraction, the Palace is a convention and
exposition center. When I was there, French President Jacques Chirac
was visiting to inaugurate an art exhibition. His peregrination and
attendant throng provided a pale echo of the pomp and pageantry that
must have surrounded the popes.
Let me now explain a bit about how the Palace got to be built. It all
started in 1305, when the College of Cardinals back in Rome elected a
French pope. A big mistake, in hindsight. Accepting the invitation of
a French nobleman (who thought he could leverage his influence on a
local pope), Clement V moved the papacy lock, stock, and miters to
Avignon in 1309. He said he was tired of all the corruption in the
Vatican. Clement’s successors built the Palace into a suitably
imposing edifice. The line of Avignon popes lasted until Gregory XI
finally moved back to Rome in 1376.
After Gregory XI died, his successor got inspired to do something
about the corruption that had led Clement V away to Avignon. The
College of Cardinals, still mostly French, became rather upset about
these reforms. So they elected a pope of their own, Clement VII, who
moved back to Avignon. So from 1378 through 1411 there were two
popes! As Christ’s Representative(s) on Earth, both devoted themselves
to the sacred spiritual tasks of denouncing and excommunicating each
other while scheming to regain a monopoly on lucrative tithes, taxes,
and the burgeoning sale of indulgences (a kind of “get out of Hell
free” card).
With the end of this “Great Schism of the West” in 1411, the Palace was
abandoned and gutted. Like so many other buildings, it was looted and
pillaged during the Revolution, and became a prison and barracks.
Restoration has been going on continuously since 1906.
Alongside the Palace is what used to be an orchard planted by Pope
Urban V. The trees are gone, but a quiet little courtyard remains (left).
Also adjoining the Palace is the Rocher des Doms, a very pleasant
terraced garden park that offers panoramic views (including the
“roofscape” of Old Avignon in the first picture on this page).
Pont St-Bénézet is the other famous Avignon attraction.
Yes, it’s the very same pont d’Avignon on which those gentlemen,
ladies, and clerics all danced in the little song familiar from high
school French class. According to the official account, in 1177 Jesus
appeared to the shepherd boy Bénézet, telling him to build
a bridge over the Rhône (angels would take care of the sheep).
Bénézet ran to Avignon to inform the bishop, who summarily
pronounced him insane and sent him to the local magistrate for a
flogging. Bénézet won over both of them when he
miraculously moved an impossibly heavy stone to serve as the bridge’s
foundation. He was only 21 when he died, but he did eighteen more
miracles that qualified him as the patron saint of Avignon (and of
bachelors). The miracles apparently had dissipated by the 17th century,
when a flood broke the bridge in the middle and left it in its current
useless state.
All the guidebooks, as well as the recorded audio tour you get when
you visit the bridge, insist on pointing out that the bridge is too
narrow for anyone to dance on it en rond (in a circle), as in the
song. The dancing actually happened under the bridge. Fine.
Except, as you’ll notice from the picture, under the bridge flows the
Rhône. I can only speculate that one of Bénézet’s
miracles let people not only walk on the water but dance on it.
The best view of the bridge is from the middle of the Rhône, on the Ile
de Barthelasse at sunset. You can see that the bridge connects to the
city wall, which is directly in front of the Palace of the Popes. The
Ile de Barthelasse also solves the mystery of that dancing under
the bridge. The bridge originally was nearly a kilometer long. It
crossed the island and continued all the way to
Villeneuve-lès-Avignon on the other side of the river. If anyone actually
danced under the bridge, they did it on the island.
On the other side of the Ile de Barthelasse is Villeneuve-lès-Avignon
(“new city near Avignon”). If Avignon was the “City of the
Popes,” Villeneuve was the “City of the Cardinals.” Perhaps feeling a
bit crowded and claustrophobic within the walls of Avignon, the
cardinals built their palaces in Villeneuve. Presumably they commuted
to Avignon using the Pont St-Bénézet. Contemporary with
the popes and cardinals is the Fort St-André and its
well-preserved gate tower. Inside the fortified walls was once an entire
village, as well as a Benedictine abbey.
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