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For the Municipality in Quebec, see Avignon Regional County Municipality, Quebec.

Avignon (pronounced in IPA, Provençal: Avignoun) is a commune in southern France with some 88,300 inhabitants in the city itself and 155,500 in the Greater Avignon area.

Geography

Avignon is the capital of the Vaucluse département. It is situated on the left bank of the Rhône, a few miles above its confluence with the Durance, about 580 km (360 m.) south-south-east of Paris, 143 m. south of Lyon and 85 km (55 m.) north-north-west of Marseille. Its coordinates are . Avignon and occupies a large oval-shaped area not fully populated, and covered in great part by parks and gardens.

Avignon is subject to violent winds, of which the most disastrous is the mistral. The popular proverb is, however, somewhat exaggerated, Avenie ventosa, sine vento venenosa, cum vento fastidiosa (windy Avignon, pest-ridden when there is no wind, wind-pestered when there is).

Administration

Avignon is the préfecture (capital) of the Vaucluse département in the region of Provence. It forms the core of the Grand Avignon metropolitan area (communauté d'agglomération), which comprises twelve communes on both sides of the river:

History

Early history

The site of Avignon was settled very early on; the rocky outcrop (le Rocher les Doms) at the north end of the town, overlooking the Rhône, may have been the site of a Celtic oppidum or hill fort. Avignon, written as Avennio in the ancient texts and inscriptions, takes its name from the Avennius clan. Founded by the Cavari tribe, of Celtic origin, it became the centre of an important Phocaean colony from Massilia (present Marseilles). Under the Romans, it was one of the most flourishing cities of Gallia Narbonensis, the first Transalpine province of the Roman Empire, but very little from this period remains (a few fragments of the forum near Rue Molière).

During the inroads of the barbarians, it was badly damaged in the 5th century and belonged in turn to the Goths, the Burgundians, the Ostrogoths, and the Frankish-Merovingian kings of Austrasia. In 736 it fell into the hands of the Saracens, and was destroyed in 737 by the Franks under Charles Martel, after it had sided with the Arabs against him. Boso having been proclaimed Burgundian King of Provence, or of Arelat (after its capital Arles), by the Synod of Mantaille, at the death of Louis the Stammerer (879), Avignon ceased to belong to the Frankish kings.

In 1033, when Conrad II fell heir to the Kingdom of Arelat, Avignon passed to the empire. The German rulers, however, being at a distance, Avignon took advantage of their absence to set up as a republic with a consular form of government, between 1135 and 1146. In addition to the Emperor, the Counts of Forcalquier, of Toulouse and of Provence exercised a purely nominal sway over the city; on two occasions, in 1125, and in 1251, the latter two divided their rights in regard to it, while the Count of Forcalquier resigned any right he possessed to the local Bishops and Consuls in 1135. At the end of the 12th century, its commune declared itself an independent republic, but independence was crushed in 1226 during the crusade against the Albigenses (the dualist Cathar heresy centered in neighbouring Albi) after the citizens refused to open the gates of Avignon to King Louis VIII of France and the papal Legate, but capitulated after a three months' siege (10 June - 13 September, 1226) and were forced to pull down the ramparts and fill up the moat of their city. On 7 May 1251 Avignon is made a common possession of counts Charles of Anjou and Alphonse de Poitiers, brothers of French King Louis VIII. On 25 August 1271, at the death of Alphonse de Poitiers, Avignon and the surrounding countship Comtat-Venaissin (which was governed by rectors since 1274) are united with the French crown.

Avignon and its Popes

In 1309 the city was chosen by Pope Clement V as his residence when the city and the surrounding Comtat Venaissin were ruled by the kings of Sicily from the house of Anjou, and from 9 March 1309 till 13 January 1377 was the seat of the Papacy instead of Eternal Rome. French King Philip the Fair, who had inherited from his father all the rights of Alphonse de Poitiers, the last Count of Toulouse, made them over to Charles II, King of Naples and Count of Provence (1290). Nonetheless, Phillip was a shrewd ruler. Inasmuch as the eastern banks of the Rhone marked the edge of his kingdom, when the river flooded up into the city of Avignon, Phillip taxed the city since during periods of flood, the city technically lay within his domain. Regardless, on the strength of the donation of Avignon, Queen Joanna I of Sicily, as countess of Provence, sold the city to Clement VI for 80,000 florins (9 June, 1348) and, though it was later the seat of more than one antipope, Avignon belonged to the Papacy until 1791, when, during the disorder of the French Revolution, it was reincorporated with France.

Seven popes resided there:

This period from 1309–1377 — the Avignon Papacy — was also called the Babylonian Captivity of - exile, in reference to the Israelites' enslavement in biblical times. The analogy fitted Avignon in another sense—the venality of the papal court caused the city to become infamously corrupt, much as Babylon had been accused of being. The poet Petrarch condemned the city's corruption, contributing to the papacy's return to Rome out of sheer embarrassment as much as anything else.

The walls built by the popes in the years immediately succeeding the acquisition of Avignon as papal territory are well preserved. They were not, however, particularly strong fortifications; the Popes relied instead on the immensely strong fortifications of their palace, the "Palais des Papes". This lofty Gothic building, with walls 17–18 feet thick, was built 1335–1364 on a natural spur of rock, rendering it all but impregnable to attack. After being expropriated following the French Revolution, it was used as barracks for many years but is now a museum.

Avignon, which at the beginning of the fourteenth century was a town of no great importance, underwent a wonderful development during the residence there of seven popes and two anti-popes, Clement V to Benedict XIII. To the north and south of the rock of the Doms, partly on the site of the Bishop's Palace, which had been enlarged by John XXII, rose the Palace of the Popes, in the form of an imposing fortress made up of towers, linked one to another, and named as follows: De la Campane, de Trouillas, de la Glacière, de Saint-Jean, des Saints-Anges (Benedict XII), de la Gâche, de la Garde-Robe (Clement VI), de Saint-Laurent (Innocent VI). The Palace of the Popes belongs, by its severe architecture, to the Gothic art of the South of France; other noble examples areto be seen in the churches of St. Didier, St. Peter, and St. Agricola, in the Clock Tower, and in the fortifications built between 1349 and 1368 for a distance of some three miles, and flanked by thirty-nine towers, all of which were erected or restored by popes, cardinals, and great dignitaries of the court. On the other hand, the execution of the frescoes which are on the interiors of the papal palace and of the churches of Avignon was entrusted almost exclusively to artists from Siena.

The popes were followed to Avignon by agents (factores) of the great Italian banking-houses, who settled in the city as money-changers, as intermediaries between the Apostolic Chamber and its debtors, living in the most prosperous quarters of the city, which was known as the Exchange. A crowd of traders of all kinds brought to market the products necessary to mainten the numerous court and of the visitors who flocked to it; grain and wine from Provence, from the south of France, the Roussillon, and the country around Lyons. Fish was brought from places as distant as Brittany; cloths, rich stuffs, and tapestries came from Bruges and Tournai. We need only glance at the account-books of the Apostolic Chamber, still kept in the Vatican archives, in order to judge of the trade of which Avignon became the centre. The university founded by Boniface VIII in 1303, had a good many students under the French popes, drawn thither by the generosity of the sovereign pontiffs, who rewarded them with books or with benefices.

The papal return to Rome prompted the Great Schism, during which the antipopes Clement VII and Benedict XIII continued to reside at Avignon. The former lived there during his entire pontificate (1378–1394), the latter until 1403, when he fled to Aragon.

After the departure of the popes

After the restoration of the Holy See in Rome, the spiritual and temporal government of Avignon was entrusted to a gubernatorial Legate, notably the Cardinal-nephew, who was replaced, in his absence, by a vice-legate (contrary to the legate usually a commoner, and not a cardinal). But pope Innocent XII abolished nepotism and the office of Legate in Avignon (7 February 1693), handing over its temporal government in 1692 to the Congregation (i.e. department of the papal Curia) of Avignon, residing at Rome, with the Cardinal Secretary of State as presiding prefect, and exercising its jurisdiction through the vice-legate. This congregation, to which appeals were made from the decisions of the vice-legate, was united to the Congregation of Loretto; in 1774 the vice-legate was made president, thus depriving it of almost all authority. It was done away with under Pius VI (12 June 1790 ).

The Public Council, composed of 48 councillors chosen by the people, four members of the clergy, and four doctors of the university, met under the presidency of the viquier (Occitan for vicar, i.e. substitute), or chief magistrate of the city, nominated, for a year, by the papal Legate or Vice-legate. Their duty was to watch over the material and financial interests of the city; their resolutions, however, were to be submitted to the vice-legate for approval before being put in force. Three consuls, chosen annually by the Council, had charge of the administration of the streets.

Avignons survival as a papal enclave was, however, somewhat precarious, as the French crown maintained a large standing garrison at Villeneuve-lès-Avignon just across the river.

From the fifteenth century onward it became the policy of the Kings of France to unite Avignon to their kingdom. In 1476, Louis XI, annoyed that Giuliano della Rovere should have been made legate, rather than Charles of Bourbon, caused the city to be occupied, and did not withdraw his troops until after his favourite had been made a cardinal. In 1536 king Francis I invaded the papal territory, in order to drive out the Habsburg Emperor Charles V, who held Provence. In return for the reception accorded him by the people of Avignon, Francis granted them the same privileges as those enjoyed by the French, that, especially, of being eligible to offices of state. Henry III made a fruitless attempt to exchange the Marquisate of Saluzzo for Avignon, but pope Gregory XIII refused (1583).

In 1663, Louis XIV, in consequence of an attack, led by the Corsican Guard, on the attendants of the Duc de Créqui, his ambassador in Rome, seized Avignon, which was declared an integral part of the Kingdom of France by the provincial Parliament of Provence. Nor was the sequestration raised until after Cardinal Chigi had made an apology (1664). Another attempt at occupation made in 1688, without success, was followed by a long period of peace, lasting till 1768.

Louis XV, dissatisfied at Clement XIII's action in regard to the Duke of Parma, caused the Papal States to be occupied from 1768 to 1774, and substituted French institutions for those in force with the approval of the people of Avignon, and a French party grew up which, after the sanguinary massacres of La Glacière, carried all before it, and induced the Constituent Assembly to decree the union of Avignon and the Comtat (comital district) Venaissin with France (14 September, 1791). On 25 June 1793 Avignon and Comtat-Venaissain are integrated along with the former principality of Orange to form the present republican département Vaucluse. Article 5 of the Treaty of Tolentino (19 February, 1797) definitely sanctioned the annexation; it stated that "The Pope renounces, purely and simply, all the rights to which he might lay claim over the city and territory of Avignon, and the Comtat Venaissin and its dependencies, and transfers and makes over the said rights to the French Republic." In 1801 the territory had 191,000 inhabitants. On 30 May 1814, the French annexation is recognized by the Pope. Consalvi made an ineffectual protest at the Treaty of Vienna, in 1815 but Avignon was never restored to the Holy See.

Ecclesiastical history of the (Arch)diocese

The town had significant religious status from ancient times. There is no evidence that St. Rufus, a disciple of St. Paul (according to certain traditions the son of Simon the Cyrenean) and St. Justus, likewise held in high honour throughout the territory of Avignon, were venerated in antiquity as bishops of that see. It was the seat of a bishop as early as the year 70 AD. The first bishop known to history is Nectarius, who took part in several councils about the middle of the fifth century. St. Magnus was a Gallo-Roman senator who became a monk and then bishop of the city. His son, St. Agricol (Agricolus), bishop between 650 and 700, is the patron saint of Avignon. Several synods of minor importance were held there, and its university, founded by Pope Boniface VIII in 1303 and famed as a seat of legal studies, flourished until the French Revolution. The memory of St. Eucherius still clings to three vast caves near the village of Beaumont, whither, it is said, the people of Lyons had to go in search of him when they sought him to make him their archbishop. As Bishop of Cavaillon, Cardinal Philippe de Cabassoles, Seigneur of Vaucluse, was the great protector of the Renaissance poet Petrarch.

In 1475 pope Sixtus IV raised the diocese of Avignon to the rank of an archbishopric, in favour of his nephew Giuliano della Rovere, who later became Pope Julius II. The Archdiocese of Avignon exercises canonic jurisdiction over the department of Vaucluse. Before the Revolution it had as suffragan sees Carpentras, Vaison and Cavaillon, which were united by the Concordat of 1801 to Avignon, together with the Diocese of Apt, a suffragan of Aix. At the same time, however, Avignon was reduced to the rank of a bishopric and was made a suffragan see of Aix. The Archdiocese of Avignon was re-established in 1822, and received as suffragan sees the diocese of Viviers (restored in 1822), Valence (formerly under Lyon), Nimes (restored in 1822) and Montpellier (formerly under Toulouse). In 1905 the Archdiocese of Avignon had 236,949 inhabitants, 29 cures (parishes of the first class), 144 parishes of the second class, and 47 vicariates.

Sights

Miscellaneous

A famous theater festival, is held annually in Avignon. Founded in 1947, the Avignon Festival comprises both traditional theatrical events and other art forms such as dance, music and cinema, making good use of the town's historical monuments. Taking place every summer, approximately 100,000 people attend. There are really two fesitvals that take place: the more formal Festival In, which presents plays inside the Palace of the Popes and the more bohemian Festival Off, which is known for its presentation of largely undiscovered plays and street performances.

Avignon is commemorated by the French children's song, "Sur le pont d'Avignon" ("On the bridge of Avignon"), which describes folk dancing. The bridge of the song is the Saint Bénezet bridge, over the Rhône River, of which only four arches (out of the initial 22) starting from Avignon side remain. In fact people would have danced beneath the bridge (sous le pont) where it crossed an island (Ile de Barthelasse) on its way to Villeneuve-lès-Avignon. The bridge was initially built between 1171 and 1185, with an original length of some 900 m (2950 ft), but it suffered frequent collapses during floods and had to be reconstructed several times. Several arches were already missing (and spanned by wooden sections) before the remainder was damaged beyond repair in 1660.

The International Congress Center

was created in 1976 within the outstanding premises of the Palace of the Popes and hosts many events throughout the entire year. The Congress Center, designed for conventions, seminars, and meetings for 10 to 550 persons, now occupies two wings of the Popes’ Palace.

The International Conference Center

Famous residents include

(born in Avignon)

Twin towns

Avignon is twinned with:

See also

Sources, references and external links

Avignon | World Heritage Sites in France

The following text, from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition should be wikified and merged into the above article

Pop. (1906) 35,356.

A suspension bridge leads over the river to Villeneuve-les-Avignon, and a little higher up, a picturesque ruined ridge of the 12th century, the Pont Saint-Bénezet, projects into he stream. Only four of the eighteen piles are left; on one of them stands the chapel of Saint-Bénezet, a small Romanesque buildlng. Avignon is still encircled by the ramparts built by he popes in the 14th century, which offer one of the finest examples of medieval fortification in existence. The walls, which are of great strength, are surmounted by machicolated sattlements, flanked at intervals by thirty-nine massive towers and pierced by several gateways, three of which date from the 14th century. The whole is surrounded by a line of pleasant boulevards.

The life of the town is almost confined to the place de l'Hôtel de Ville and the Cours de la République, which leads out of it and extends to the ramparts. Elsewhere the streets are narrow, quiet, and, for the most part, badly paved. At the northern extremity of the town a precipitous rock, the Rocher des Doms, rises from the rivers edge and forms a plateau stretchng southwards nearly to the Place de l'Hôtel de Ville. Its summit is occupied by a public garden and, to the south of this, are the cathedral of Notre-Dame des Doms and the Palace of the Popes.

The cathedral is a Romanesque building, mainly of the 12th century, the most prominent feature of which is the gilded statue of the Virgin which surmounts the western tower. Among the many works of art in the interior, the most beautiful is the mausoleum of Pope John XXII, a masterpiece of Gothic carving of the 14th century. The cathedral is almost dwarfed by the Palace of the Popes, a sombre assemblage of buildings, which rises at its side and cuvers a space of more than 13/4 acres. Begun in 1316 by John XXII, it was continued by succeeding popes until 1370, and is in the Gothic style; in its construction everything has been sacrificed to strength, and though the effect is imposing, the place has the aspect rather of a fortress than of a palace. It was for long used as a barracks and prison, to the exigencies of which the fine apartments were ruthlessly adapted, but it is now municipal property.

Among the minor churches of the town are St Pierre, which has a graceful faade and richly carved doors, St Didier and St Agricol, all three of Gothic architecture. The most notable of the civil buildings are the Hôtel de Ville, a modern building with a belfry of the 14th century, and the old Hôtel des Monnaies, the papal mint which was built in 1610 and is now used as a music-school. The Calvet Museum, so named after F. Calvet, physician, who in 1810 left his collections to the town, is rich in inscriptions, bronzes, glass and other antiquities, and in sculptures and paintings. The library has over 140,000 volumes. The town has a statue of a Persian, Jean Althen, who in 1765 introduced the culture of the madder plant, which long formed the staple and is still an important branch of local trade. In 1873 John Stuart Mill died at Avignon, and is buried in the cemetery. For the connection of Petrarch with the town see PETRARCH.

Avignon is the seat of an archbishop and has tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a council of trade-arbitrators, a lyce, and training college, a chamber of commerce and a branch of the Bank of France. It is in the midst of a fertile district, in the products of which it has a large trade, and has flour-mills, distilleries, oil-works and leather-works, manufactures soap, chemicals and liquorice, and is well known for its sarsanet and other fabrics.

Avignon (Avenio) was an important town of the Gallic tribe of the Cavares, and under the Romans one of the leading cities of Gallia Narbonensis. Severely harassed during the barbarian invasions and by the Saracens, it was, in later times, attached successively to the kingdoms of Burgundy and of Arles and to the domains of the counts of Provence and of Toulouse and of Forcalquier. At the end of the 12th century it became a republic, but in 1226 was taken and dismantled by Louis VIII. as punishment for its support of the Albigenses, and in 1251 was forced to submit to the counts of Toulouse and Provence. In 1309 the city was chosen by Clement V as his residence, and from that time till 1377 was the papal seat. In 1348 the city was sold by Joanna, countess of Provence, to Clement VI. After Gregory XI had migrated to Rome, two antipopes, Clement VII and Benedict XIII, resided at Avignon, from which the latter was expelled in 1408. The town remained in the possession of the popes, who governed it by means of legates, till its annexation by the National Assembly in 1791, though during this interval several kings of France made efforts to unite it with their dominions. In 1791 conflicts between the adherents of the Papacy and the Republicans led to much bloodshed. In 1815 Marshal Brune was assassinated in the town by the adherents of the royalist party. The bishopric, founded in the 3rd century, became an archbishopric in 1475.

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