Tournus

TOURNUS. - Formerly abbey of St. Valerian, later of St. Philibert, in the department of Saône-et-Loire in France, diocese of Autun.

St. Valerian at the Castrum Trinorciense (Tournus) appears under 15 September in the Gallican additions to the Hieronymianum, and the legendary Passio places him in the time of the martyrs of Lyons, Epipodius and Alexander (BHL, 5245, 8487-89). The basilica erected over his tomb gave rise to the abbey (Gregory of Tours, In gloria martyrum, 53). In 875 the monks of Noirmoutier settled there, under the threat of the Normans, bringing with them the relics of St. Philibert, from whom the abbey took its title; in 1627 it became a collegiate church and in 1785 it lost the abbatial title.

The church of St. Philibert is one of the finest examples of Romanesque art, in which traces of the original 9th-century building, sacked in 937, survive in the lower part of the narthex and in the crypt. The church was rebuilt, then suffered a fire in 1008; a third building was constructed immediately afterward by Abbot Bernier in 1019; but the work was completed only in the following century, and the consecration was performed by Pope Callixtus II in 1120. The facade is decorated with Lombard-style little arches and is flanked by two square towers; the narthex is divided into three parts by four large circular pillars, and a 14th-century fresco depicts the Crucifixion; the interior is divided into three naves by circular pillars of pink stone, and the vaults are of white stone alternating with colored stone. The chapel of the Baptistery was added in 1330 and shows remains of a fresco with the Last Judgment. In the right side aisle, in a chapel, an ancient cedar-wood statue of the Madonna seated with the Child is preserved; in the crossing rises a lantern with a dome; the chapel to the north of the transept is dedicated to St. Ardagnus, the ambulatory has radiating chapels, in

In the central one are the relics of St. Philibert; beneath the choir is the crypt with columns and Romanesque capitals; there the tomb of St. Valerian is venerated; in the vault is a fresco with Christ in majesty and the Madonna and Child.

To the right of the narthex are the chapel of St. Michael and the remains of the cloister of St. Ardagus from the 11th century. The church is surrounded by the ancient monastic buildings, and in the house known as that of the treasurer the Musée bourguignon has been established, with furniture, tools, and costumes from the regions of Mâcon and Bresse; further on is the abbatial residence (1471-98) in Flamboyant Gothic, and the chapter hall erected by Abbot Berard (1239). At the center of the Roman castrum is the ancient church of Ste-Marie-du-Châtel, erected in the 12th century and restored in the 14th and 15th centuries; it is today dedicated to the Magdalene; it preserves a Romanesque portal and the square bell tower. Characteristic is the opus spicatum construction of the ancient chapel of St. Lawrence.

The ancient Romanesque church of St. Valerian (1008-1028) has been transformed into a hall for festivities.

There is also the Greuze Museum, founded in 1867, with prehistoric, Gallo-Roman and barbarian antiquities, sculptures and paintings; four rooms are dedicated to the artist J. B. Greuze (1725-1805). In the town hall is preserved the Library with ca. 20,000 volumes, many of which belonged to the abbey; among the notable manuscripts is that of Ermentarius from the 9th century. T. has a Société des Amis des Arts et des sciences, which has printed its Mémoires since 1900.

Enrico Josi