Anchored in the heart of the city of Poitiers, this Romanesque church is a centerpiece of pictave heritage.
Carved in the first half of the 12th century, the famous facade of Notre-Dame-la-Grande church in Poitiers offers an ornamental and figurative vocabulary of great quality.
At the entrance gate, a frieze tells stories of the holy story - from Adam and Eve to the birth of Jesus.
Above, the college of Apostles, Bishops and Pope are distributed on both sides of the single window. Finally, a Christ in glory dominates the whole composition, in the center of a pinion embellished by a size of stones in rhombuses or cones.
On the occasion of a major construction campaign, between 1992 and 2004, this facade was restored in its original beauty, revealing also old traces of polychromy.
The interior is also dedicated to color, but it is essentially a mural of the 1850s, except for the vault of the choir, authentically Romanesque.
The stalls, partly Renaissance, share the nave with a small choir organ of the nineteenth century. The great organ, meanwhile, is an achievement of Yves Sévère (1996).
All the north side of the Notre-Dame-la-Grande church, as well as its chevet, present a line of chapels of the 15th and 16th centuries, built in the architectural style of their time: one can thus admire very beautiful Gothic vaults from the end of the Middle Ages or others, Renaissance period, adorned with caissons.
In one of the chapels to the right of the choir, a remarkable 16th century carved group of polychrome stone representing Entombment.
Opening hours to the public :
Every day from 9h to 19h
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