Sacred Spaces > Abbaye de Saint Michel
   | | Abbaye de Saint-Michel The Benedictine Abbey of Saint-Michel was founded in the 10th century. Rebuilt several times, today it is a preserved architectural site, with its 13th century choir and transept, its 17th century nave and facade and its later built cloister. Its Baroque facade, built by the Abbot of Mornat, is particularly impressive as well as its colourful frescos which, all along one aisle of the cloister, tell the visitors and pilgrims about the life of Saint Benoît, the founder of the Order. The organ built by Boizard in 1714, untouched by the Revolution and successive fires, today is one of the jewels of the site, classified Monument Historique. Every year the Abbey hosts an international festival of sacred ancient and Baroque music and quality recordings centred on this instrument and the acoustics of the church, both of which are exceptional. In the agricultural outbuildings of the cloistered site, a museum houses important ethnographic collections on rural and forest life. |
