Église Saint-Saturnin

English translation

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History

From the 12th century, one probably preserves vestiges of the original single nave with flat chevet, with its barrel vault in round arch over the nave and some of the corbels of the cornice around the exterior walls. First reworking by the west facade, where the portal, with very elaborate moulding, must date from the late 13th or early 14th century. From 1458, two campaigns of enlargement in close succession followed one another: an aisle of three bays to the north and the vaulting of the choir, then a large seigniorial chapel of square plan on the south flank of the nave. Tracery of openings and vault ribs with interpenetration characteristic of flamboyant Gothic. The south chapel, with its volume of hall chapel where two central pillars receive rib vaults with liernes, could have been commissioned by Jean de Pontville, familiar of Louis XI, who became viscount of Rochechouart by marriage in 1470. Important painted decoration was discovered in 1994 on the walls of this chapel: perhaps a Coronation of the Virgin, a saint John the Baptist, and a Resurrection representing at the same time Christ surging from the tomb, the Roman soldiers, the holy women and saint Michael crushing the dragon. One also sees fragments of other painted decoration: a bagpipe, a piece of classical architecture and an incompletely preserved harp.