Cimiez Hill ‘Sites’ Collection Thousand Inhabitants
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The Cimiez hill ‘Sites’ collection thousand inhabitants. In the 4th century, THE HILL IN THE the Roman conquest spread northwards, resulting in a loss of Cemenelum’s status MODERN ERA as a prefecture, which was instead At the foot of the Cimiez hill, on the slope transferred on to Embrun. Cemenelum over which the ancient Via Julia once declined as the neighbouring city of ran, the Saint-Pons Abbey was founded Nicæa rose (in Latin, from which we get around the 8th century by the Benedictine the French word ‘Nice’). monks, designed to replace the ancient As Christianity spread, the two cities each funerary basilica erected over the tomb received a diocese, perhaps as early as in of Saint Pontius. This monastery outside [1] The garden at the Arènes de Cimiez featuring the Roman amphitheatre, the olive grove and the monastery, the Villa 314 for Nicæa and in 439 in Cemenelum. Gubernatis (Matisse museum) and the archaeological dig site. the city became the first local makeshift Photo City of Nice The ancient thermal baths to the west trader to deal in personal property, real were transformed into a Christian basilica estate, leases and taxes in the Middle ith its archaeological ruins, behind the front lines, designed to stand and baptistery. Yet in an illustration of its Ages. At the time, it was a significant museums, old hotels and Belle between the Emperor Augustus’s legions dwindling power, from 466 the diocese site of pilgrimage. Monks were able to Époque W villas and gardens, the and the fiercely defensive Alpine tribes. of Cemenelum was annexed to that of spread across the entire region, building Cimiez hill emerges as one of Nice’s The site was flat and raised, with water Nicæa. Despite barbarian invasions, numerous churches as they went. It most fascinating sites. To take the time being brought down from the surrounding the site of Cemenelum continued to be was thus that in 1450, they turned the to explore it on foot is to delve into Nice’s hills. On the other side, the Greeks built a inhabited to a greater or lesser extent modest chapel dedicated to Mary that th rich past that stretches from Antiquity trading post in Nikaïa (Nice) on the site of until the 8 century, with the ancient had been built a few centuries earlier in to the present day, in the exceptional the current Castle hill. buildings occupied by dwellings and Cimiez into a single-nave church, not far setting of a residential district. Once peace had been restored to the farms. Following a final razing in the era from their abbey and from the Roman region in the 1st century AD, Cemenelum of Charles Martel, the majority of the amphitheatre where their dedicatory THE ANCIENT became the administrative capital of the population clustered together in Nice, saint, Pontius, was raised to martyrdom new Roman province of Alpes maritimæ. on the Castle hill. The former capital in around 257. As their income dwindled HILL A Gallo-Roman city developed. An of the Alpes-Maritimes gradually fell in the 16th century, the Benedictines were amphitheatre (improperly called “the to ruin. It was used as a stone quarry unable to keep up with spending in their Two hills stand gazing out over one Arenas”) and three baths [2] were built in and the remaining vestiges were buried community. In 1546, they relinquished another: the Castle and Cimiez hills, the 1st to 2nd centuries AD, and their vestiges under weeds and farming plots [3]. It their land in Cimiez and the chapel to the split by the Paillon, a coastal river that make up the current archaeological site disappeared from the archives, as did Franciscans, whose monastery, located is now covered by the Promenade du which is also rich in a number of dwellings. most of Nice’s written history in the times on the present-day Place Saint-François Paillon. The two hills were inhabited in Because the amphitheatre could seat up known as the ‘dark’ ages. in Nice’s old town, had been sacked High Antiquity by Celto-Ligurian tribes. to five thousand spectators, Cemenelum during the Franco-Ottoman siege of the The Vediantiens fortified one slope close must have been home to at least ten city three years before. to the present-day Cimiez monastery, The miner monks built a first cloister nicknamed the “sacred wood”. They topped with units, had a cistern dug placed themselves under Rome’s out and repaired the church, where protection when the Romans chose to they placed magnificent Louis Brea establish the city of Cemenelum on the altarpieces that had been salvaged from surrounding plateau at the end of the the destroyed convent. Piéta (1475), st 1 century BC. In doing so, the Romans Crucifixion [4] (1512), The Lamentation were merely giving Latin form to a local of Christ, are three of the Brea’s most name, Cemenelum [1]. significant masterpieces, a dynasty of The site was not chosen at random, as Nice painters that was active across it lay alongside the Via Julia Augusta, the entire region. Louis Brea, who was the long road linking Rome to Spain. [2] The Cemenelum archaeological site, ruins of the [3] The Roman amphitheatre cultivated for crops in the 18th approached by the future Pope Julian The choice of site was primarily military, northern baths. century. II in 1490, played a key role in the Photo City of Nice Watercolour engraving taken from the Corografia dell’Italia. as Cemenelum was a garrison town development of religious paintings from the Franciscan monastery in Nice’s old and opened to the public in 1927. town. Vandalised in 1979, this marble The charm of its rose gardens and the Calvary was restored and placed inside spectacular views seen here make it a the church. A copy can now be seen at delightful place for a stroll and a favourite the original site. for newly-wed photo sessions. Outside To the left of the church was the of the Franciscan convent complex, the Cimiez cemetery [6] where a number Cimiez hill was a farming space where of patricians, artists and members of olive groves were dotted among plots bourgeois society from Nice and abroad of farmed land, grazing pastures and [9] The Garin de Cocconato property prior to being were buried, sometimes in tombs that vineyards. A number of Nice’s nobles bought by the City in 1923. are characteristic of the 19th century’s had holiday homes and gardens here Nice, Bibliothèque de Cessole library. Copy City of Nice demonstrative and eclectic funerary art. within the farmland. The most famous It is here too that the painters Raoul Dufy of these is the Palais de Gubernatis, plots of land from 1924 on. Under the and Henri Matisse, as well as the writer now home to the Musée Matisse [8]. Second French Empire, the lower section Roger Martin du Gard, are buried. From 1670 to 1685, the president of the of Cimiez and the Carabacel district were [4] Crucifixion, altarpiece by Louis Brea, 1572. Sénat de Nice Jean-Baptiste Gubernatis largely made up of residences and hotels Photo City of Nice transformed a traditional farmstead into for winter visitors. a sumptuous Genovese villa embellished As with most of Nice’s hills, Cimiez was the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. In with trompe-l’œil décor. The property lacking in water. With the joining of the the 1660s, the church was expanded with extended out across the entire present-day Vésubie canal and the Gairaut waterfall the addition of an apse and side chapels, archaeological site, now covered in fields. in 1883, Nice’s hills and gardens were scattered with walnut sideboards, stalls, The ancient baths were home to farms. irrigated with drinkable water. The a pulpit and an impressive golden shrewd developer and Nice architect S. th altarpiece on the high altar. In the 18 M. Biasini joined forces with the director century, a vast outdoor cloister was built [6] The Cimiez cemetery in the 19th century Oil on canvas by François Bensa. of Crédit Lyonnais, Henri Germain, to overlooking the vegetable patch, as Photo City of Nice divide the southern slope of the Cimiez was an entrance portico. In 1844, the hill into plots. They bought most of the th latter was replaced with a façade in the A museum was founded inside the 17 plots of land and opened the city’s longest troubadour style that was in fashion at century convent buildings, painted with straight road, the Boulevard de Cimiez the time [5], a Gothic romantic style that a fresco depicting Franciscan life in [10], inaugurated on 31 December 1884. th the kings of Piedmont chose to decorate Nice from the 13 century to the present [8] Northern façade of the Villa Gubernatis, present-day Once levelled, the land was sold at the Hautecombe abbey where their day. Following laws on the separation Matisse museum. Photo City of Nice huge profit to real estate companies, ancestors were buried. of the Church and State in 1901, the residence groups who built villas and In 1804, the seraphic cross of 1477 monastery’s gardens [7] became the apartment buildings, and hotels. Thus, was erected in the monastery’s square, property of the local council. They were although it had initially been housed in landscaped into an Italian-style garden CIMIEZ IN THE BELLE EPOQUE Over the course of the 19th century, many of these vast estates were bought in order to build opulent villas nestled in wooded grounds. The Gubernatis estate was handed over to the Garin de Cocconato family in 1823 [9] who turned it into an English holiday residence at the end of the 19th century.