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During the Augustean period
the capital town, the town fell to the Romans, who called it Vessuna after a
local spring, the Vésone that became their tutelary deity.
Vesuna, which
became Perigueux in later times, was founded in the valley. The town ran along a
low plateau and was smartened up during the years by many majestic public
monuments: amphitheatres, forum, and temple, public baths. Very luxurious villas
with refined decorations border on modest suburbs.
Vesunna was
still in its first bloom when the barbarians crushed it in 275. Raped and
pillaged into a stat of shock, Vesunna decide destroy its own temples and
buildings for the stone and build a huge wall, contracting itself to the state
of a small village.
That’s why
the modern town developed from two nuclei, the Cité and Puy-Saint-Front, which
vied with one another until they united in 1251. The Cité, in the southwestern
part of the town, occupies the site of Vesuna, subsequently reduced by the
barbarians to the famous small encampment, called the Civitas Petrocorium, from
which the names Cité and Périgueux are derived. Puy-Saint-Front, on the east,
grew between the 5th and 13th centuries around an abbey sanctuary containing the
body of St. Front, the Apostle of Périgord, and the first bishop of Périgueux.
As the city declined a new village of artisans and merchants grew up around the
nearby hill (puy) around the tomb of St. Front. St.Front evolved into no than a
personal acquaintance of Jesus, who lived ion a perpetual state of virginity. He
chased the devils and dragons out of the pagan temple of Vessuna by blasting an
enormous breach in the walls.
Périgueux
struggled against the English throughout the Hundred Years' War (1337-1453) and
suffered severely under Protestant occupation (1575-81) during the 16th-century
Wars of Religion, since it was a bastion or Catholicism. Given amnesty by Louis
XIV in 1654 for its part in the Fronde (a series of civil disturbances,
1648-53), the town then experienced an era of peace. At the time of the French
Revolution at the end of the 18th century, it continued as the capital of a département,
covering the same area as the medieval province of Périgord Blanc. From the
July Monarchy (1830) onward many improvements were made, and the town received
new impetus under the Second Empire (1852-70) and the Third Republic
(1870-1940).
Like I said in
my previous post, the main point of cultural interest is the cathedral of
Saint-Front, 12th century. One of the largest in southwestern France, it is
built in the shape of a Greek cross, topped by five lofty domes and numerous
colonnaded turrets. A Romanesque bell tower and cloisters of the 12th, 13th, and
16th centuries adjoin it on the south. Successive restorations, the last ending
in 1901, have altered its original character. The Périgord Museum displays
prehistoric and archaeological artifacts of the area, as well as secular and
religious art. In the Cité is the 12th-century Church of Saint-Étienne, which
was the cathedral until 1669. Evidences of ancient Roman occupation are an arena
of the 3rd century AD, a boundary wall of the Roman civitas on which is built
the Château Barrière (12th-15th century), and the Vésone Tower. Strollers
will lose themselves in the alleys of Puy-Saint-Front displaying many legacies
from Renaissance, the golden age of Périgueux, overlooked by its cathedral. The
latter, often considered as a symbol of the town, has recently been listed by
UNESCO among the sites that belong to "the World Heritage of Mankind",
on the road to Santiago de Compostella. A bit further, as a hinge between XIX
century quarters, the Musée du Périgord houses numerous treasures: prehistory,
ethnology, medieval remains...
Bibliography
Périgueux
oublié by Pierre Pommarède (1995)-Promenade dans Périgueux by Jacques Lagrange (1995)-Perigueux antique(2000) by
Girardy-Caillat/Clau-Familles patriciennes de Périgueux á la fin du Moyen Age,
by Arlette Higounet-Nadal-Promenade dans Périgueux by Jacques Lagrange (1995)
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