Apt. — A town in the department of Vaucluse, on the Coulon river (France). It was founded by the Celtic tribe of the Vulgienses, occupied by the Romans at the end of the 2nd century BC, and became the Roman colony Apta Iulia. It then passed under the Burgundians and then to the Franks; it was a county in the 11th century and a municipality in the 12th. The date of the origins of the Christian Church in Apt is uncertain; the earliest testimony is provided by the presence at the Council of Arles (314) of a Roman presbyter and an exorcist Victor, delegates of the Church of Apt.
In its episcopal records, the names of bishops given as the most ancient by tradition, such as Auspicius and Leonius, are not documented, and we must descend to the 5th century when we find them taking part in the Councils of Riez (439), Orange (440), Vaison (442), etc. In the Middle Ages, St Stephen (1010–46) rebuilt the cathedral.
With the Concordat of Napoleon I (1802), most of the diocese passed to the archdiocese of Avignon, of which it now forms an archdiaconate (with 5 deaneries and 53 parishes) under the title of St Anne and St Veranus; while the upper valley of the Cavalon was united to the diocese of Digne.
In the diocese of Apt there flourished four abbeys: two for men, one of St Eusebius, near Saignon, founded in the 6th century and suppressed in the Napoleonic age, and the other of Val-Sainte, near Banon, founded in 1188 and ended in the second half of the 18th century. The two abbeys for women were the Cistercian abbey of Holy Cross, founded in 1234 and suppressed during the French Revolution, and that of St Catherine of the Canonesses of St Augustine, founded in 1299 and suppressed in 1748.
The cathedral of Apt, dedicated to St Anne, is built above two superimposed crypts, the first of which shows remains of Roman constructions, while the other belongs to the 11th century, as does most of the building, divided into three naves and completed partly in the 12th century and partly in the 14th, with restorations in the 17th century, to which belongs the octagonal chapel of St Anne.
It contains a 7th-century sarcophagus and medieval sculptures. In the treasury there is a series of precious reliquaries and liturgical books. The episcopal palace (1745–80) is today used as a tribunal and town hall.