Amiens is a city and commune in the north of France, 120 km north of Paris. It is the préfecture (capital city) of the Somme département.

History

The Paleolithic culture named Acheulean was named for its first identified site, in Saint-Acheul, a suburb of Amiens. Amiens, the Roman Samarobriva, was the central settlement of the Ambiani, one of the principal tribes of Gaul, who were issuing coinage, probably from Amiens, in the 1st century BC. By tradition, it was at the gates of Amiens that Saint Martin of Tours, at the time still a Roman soldier, divided his cloak with a naked beggar.

Amiens was later the capital of Picardy.

Sights

Amiens Cathedral (a World Heritage Site) is the tallest of the large 'classic' Gothic churches of the 13th century and is the largest in France of its kind. After a fire destroyed the former cathedral, the new nave was built 1220 - finished 1247. Amiens Cathedral is notable for the coherence of its plan, the beauty of its three-tier interior elevation, the particularly fine display of sculptures on the principal facade and in the south transept, and the labyrinth and other inlays of its floor. It is described as the "Parthenon of Gothic architecture," and by John Ruskin as "Gothic, clear of Roman tradition and of Arabian taint, Gothic pure, authoritative, unsurpassable, and unaccusable".

Amiens is also known for the hortillonages, garden on small islands in the marshland along the Somme River, surrounded by a grid network of man-made canals.

Miscellaneous

The Battle of Amiens was the opening phase of the Hundred Days Offensive in World War I.

Jules Verne was a member of the city council of Amiens from 1888 to his death in 1905. He is buried in the Madeleine Cemetery.

Clovis Trouille, 1889-1975, was born in Amiens and trained an the École des Beaux-Arts from 1905 to 1910.

Amiens was the birthplace of Peter the Hermit and Odette Sansom (1912-1995), a heroic member of the French Resistance.

Amiens is celebrated for a treaty of peace between France and England concluded in 1802.

Amiens is also a setting in the video game Sanity's Requiem.

See also

• Treaty of Amiens
• Battle of Amiens
• Operation Jericho
• Comte d'Amiens

External links

• Official website
• Hortillons: http://perso.club-internet.fr/claudine.bienaime/parcsjardins.htm#parchortillons
• Images and details of Amiens cathedral
• Photos of Amiens including the illumination of the Cathedral by night
• The Cathedral of Amiens colored !
• Columbia University Media Center for Art History - Amiens Cathedral Website
• Amiens - Business Directory

Amiens

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