The best traffic-free bike rides around Bresnay

The patronage of this cathedral in Moulins, dedicated to the Annunciation (or, in another spelling, the Annunciation of Mary), refers to one of the many feast days in honor of the Virgin Mary. The Feast of the Annunciation (liturgical name: Annunciation of the Lord) is celebrated on March 25th, exactly nine months before Christmas. It commemorates the message the angel of the Lord brought her: that she would give birth to the Son of God – Jesus Christ. According to the account in the first chapter of the Gospel of Luke, this occurred in Nazareth, Israel. There, on the site where this event took place – according to a tradition spanning some two thousand years – a large church stands, which can thus be considered the original patronal church for the title of this church in Moulins. ] ... The Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth can be found as a komoot highlight at the following link =>> https://www.komoot.com/de-de/highlight/251260

The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Annunciation, the episcopal see of the Diocese of Moulins, was built in the 15th century on the remains of an original 10th-century chapel dedicated to Saint Peter. The oldest parts of the collegiate church are primarily built in the flamboyant Gothic style. It was elevated to a cathedral in the first half of the 19th century and then to a minor basilica.

The Sainte-Croix Church has a magnificent wooden ceiling in the nave and colorfully painted Gothic columns!

The town of Souvigny was chosen by the Bourbon dynasty as the religious capital of its duchy. Thus, the commune became the necropolis of all the Bourbon lords.

The Cathedral of Notre-Dame de l'Annonciation was built in the 15th century on the remains of a first chapel from the 10th century, which was dedicated to Saint Peter. Since 1817 it has been the episcopal church of the diocese of Moulins. The most important work of art in the cathedral is the altarpiece from around 1502 by the Master of Moulins. His triptych of Moulins shows the Virgin Mary in front of a rainbow on the central panel, also surrounded by the donor Duke Pierre II and Anne de Beaujeu and their daughter Suzanne, and is considered an important example of a donor portrait of the late Gothic period.

Saint Lawrence (Saint-LAURENT), to whom this church is dedicated, is one of the early Christian martyrs from a time when Christianity was still forbidden. He was the Pope's archdeacon and was asked by the pagan Emperor Valerian to hand over the treasure of the church. Lawrence asked for three days, during which he distributed the church's wealth among the poor inhabitants of Rome and, after the agreed time, came to the emperor with the poor to present them to him as the treasure of the church. He was then tortured to death. Legend has it that he was roasted alive on a gridiron - this attribute can be seen in many depictions of Saint Lawrence - over coals. He is said to have been in good spirits and asked his executioner if he would turn him over. The memorial day of Saint Laurent in the calendar of saints is August 10th.

Romanesque church with Burgundian, Auvergne and Berry influence. Built at the end of the 12th century and the beginning of the 13th, the current building belongs to the transitional Romanesque style. Indeed, if it is Romanesque in its general plan, the ornamentation of its portals and its capitals, its narrow semi-circular openings, its elegant apse and its cul-de-four vaulted apsidioles, it is "timidly" Gothic through the vault of its nave. Furthermore, built at the crossroads of three dioceses, this construction was influenced by the Burgundian, Auvergne and Berry schools. The capitals are most interesting: intertwined foliage, heads of grimacing men and beasts, grotesque masks... A statue of the Virgin with the bird in polychrome wood dates from the 17th century. It is remarkable for its state of preservation and its subject: Mary holding the child Jesus in her arms with a bird perched on his hand. This refers to the apocryphal gospel of the childhood of Jesus according to Thomas written in the 3rd century: Jesus as a child performs miracles such as giving life to clay birds.

This magnificent Notre-Dame-de-l’Annonciation cathedral in Moulins is absolutely worth discovering for its history but also for the points of interest that you will find inside: - The Black Madonna, patron saint of Moulins Since the 12th century, the Black Virgin has been the object of veneration by the people of Moulin in gratitude for the remarkable protection with which she has surrounded the town of Moulins for centuries. - The great Merklin organ, a great romantic instrument - The triptych of the Master of Moulins is undoubtedly the only masterpiece that survives from the vast collections of paintings that the Dukes of Bourbon had established in their ducal palace of Moulins or with which they had endowed the collegiate church that they had founded near. The triptych of the Master of Moulins was classified as a Historic Monument on June 14, 1898.