An important crossing of the River Rhône in the middle ages, the Pont d’Avignon or Pont Saint-Bénézet, built in the 1100s. On the left is the Saint-Bénézet or Saint Nicholas chapel, also built in the 1100s but redesigned later. At Avignon, capital of the Vaucluse department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur region of France. The bridge is listed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. This photograph was shot on an early July morning, between 7am and 8am.
Avignon, Vaucluse, Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur, France: the Pont d’Avignon or Pont Saint-Bénézet, a medieval bridge over the River Rhône, and the Saint-Bénézet or Saint Nicholas chapel. This photograph was shot on an early July morning, between 7am and 8am. Avignon is situated at the confluence of two rivers, the Rhône and the Durance, and has been continuously inhabited since the Stone Age, with the Romans influencing the city’s construction. Both the Pont d’Avignon and its chapel were built in the late 1100s in the Provençal Romanesque style, although the chapel was re-designed later. After Arles lost its Roman bridge, the Avignon bridge became the only place between Lyon and the Mediterranean to cross the Rhône and one of the most important pilgrimage routes between Italy and Spain. In 1226, after a siege by Louis VIII, three quarters of the bridge was destroyed but was re-built by the people of Avignon a few years later. Pope Clement V first moved the papal headquarters to Avignon in 1309 and for the next 100 years or so the city was the power centre of the Catholic church. Le Palais des Papes or Palace of the Popes was built inside Avignon’s walls in 1342 and the bridge became essential to the pontifical court. Cardinals moved to Villeneuve to escape the pollution of Avignon, at the time described by the poet Petrarch as the “most foul and stinking city on Earth”, and the bridge was the most direct link between the cardinals’ residences and the Pope’s Palace. From the 1400s, the chapel on the bridge was divided into two parts with the upper level redesigned and dedicated to Saint Nicolas. In 1603 and 1604, after flooding, four bridge arches collapsed. The bridge was repaired and usable again by 1633, but that same year two new arches were swept away. Today, little remains of the original Pont d’Avignon, apart from four arches, but it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Size: 4256px × 2832px
Location: Pont d’Avingon or Pont Saint-Bénézet, Avignon, Vaucluse, Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur, France
Photo credit: © Terence Kerr / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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