CENTRE HISTORIQUE DE LA CANOURGUE

La Canourgue : Bathed by the clear waters of the Urugne River, crisscrossed by canals like a miniature Venice. La Canourgue is a "charming, jaunty, and lively" town, as Solanet wrote. Situated on a low rise at the confluence of the Merderic and Urugne rivers, a fort, later renamed Château Saint Etienne, along with the Saint Martin monastery, formed the nucleus of the town: the square is still marked by the Clock Tower. The parish church, originally a monastic church dedicated to Saint Martin, became a collegiate church of lay canons around the year 1000. The dean ceded the collegiate church to the Benedictine monks of Saint-Victor of Marseille, who renovated it and preserved it until 1789. Only the sanctuary remains, one of the most beautiful Romanesque buildings in the Gévaudan region. Despite the alterations and additions of the 14th and 17th centuries, it retains its identity and in particular its plan, characteristic of large pilgrimage churches: a nave flanked by side aisles and an apse* with an ambulatory* onto which radiating apsidal chapels* open.

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