Eglise de Nantilly (ext)

Après quelques problèmes d'orientation avec Mme. Overlaet, et quelques casses voitures à Trèves, nous arrivions tant bien que mal jusqu'à l'Eglise de Nantilly à Saumur, que nous présentait extérieurement et historiquement Léon.

I – Geography & Origins

Celtic :

"Nant" : brook    "el" : hill    or from the word in latin meaning "lentil"

near the swamp of the Thouet

Legend : statue of Virgin Mother w/ child found in lentil field near the Thouet.

Origin : middle Xth cent, monks of St Florent (monastry in the Castle of Saumur) had a little church to Mary, as wanted by the benedictine tradition to separate abbey church and parish church. The first place of Saumur

Oldest quarter of Saumur, oldest church, the present church dating back to XIIth cent.

Place of pilgrimage before les Ardilliers.

Important role as Mother Church among other churches in Saumur, said to be in 1686 the "womb and mother" as St Pierre and St Nicolas ar "daughters". That could create tensions

Placed under the authority of the abbot of St Florent.

II – Corbels

These modillions often represent particular symbols of an era, these are the concerns of common people, and give us a chance to trace back the fears os a time.

Rebuilt in XIXth cent.

III – Benedictine Apse

IV – Gothic Side-aisle

Around 1470, erected after Louis XI, with a purpose to serve the parish.

Luminous. Very decorated outside, scalloped design, indented.

Gargoyles : Dark romanticism was mostly influenced and the imaginary was by nothing else as fueled as it was by monsters surging out of cathedrals.

It can be interpreted as the devils/vices being dragged out of the sacred place.

They are the moving expressions of gothic sculpture, faces, devils, scaring masks and hallucinated eyes.

V – The Front

The front was erected in  1140, modified several times (XV, XVII) and restored in the XIX.

The structure and the decoration recalls those of Aquitaine .

Buttresses : the wall of the front was completed in XII by the porch coming before the wall, sheltering the ancient polylobed portal, and it is supported by 4 buttresses.

Small bell-tower : 1608, modified the whole aspect : before only a cornice on the top of the front

Blind arches : a moving testimony of romanesque architecture, typical of western France. Diamond-shaped stones for the string-course, gallery of blind arches, cornices with modillions.