Palais des Papes
The largest Gothic palace in Europe and the fortified seat of the fourteenth century Avignon papacy, when a line of French popes ruled Western Christendom from this riverbank rather than Rome. Its halls, chapels and frescoed chambers sprawl across some 15,000 square metres of pale stone.
About this place
The Palais des Papes is the colossus that gave Avignon its place in history, a building that is at once a palace and a fortress, with walls in places more than three metres thick. When the papacy fled the violence of Rome and settled in Avignon in 1309, a succession of French popes needed a residence worthy of their power, and construction of the great palace began in 1335. It grew as two joined buildings: the austere Palais Vieux, or Old Palace, raised by the reforming monk Benedict XII on the solid rock of the Doms, and the far more lavish Palais Neuf added by the worldly Clement VI, the work of the architects Pierre Poisson and Jean de Louvres and finished in under twenty years. Inside lay banqueting halls, a chapel more than fifty metres long, a famous papal library and brilliant frescoes by the Italian painter Matteo Giovanetti. After the popes returned to Rome the palace was stripped and later used as an army barracks and prison, before becoming a national museum in 1906; it was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995 and now draws around 650,000 visitors a year.
Key facts
- 1335 year — Construction of the great papal palace began under Pope Benedict XII
- 1995 year — The palace was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site
- 15000 sqm — Of floor space make it the largest Gothic palace in Europe
📍 Montée Jean XXIII, 84000, Avignon