The west end of the church presents a very large gallery or _tribune_,
which was placed there at the close of the fifteenth century. Here are
the famous choir stalls which were transferred from the choir at the
same period. These stalls, fifty-one in number, are of dark oak and are
most elaborately wrought. Besides much architectural detail there are
innumerable carvings of animals and plants, of human figures and of
vague incidents. Some details, as the writer of the Handbook says, are
serious, others are amusing, and a few are not “_très convenables_.”
These exquisite stalls were the work of Jacques Bellot of Grasse. He
commenced the work, according to Mr. Kaye,[14] in 1455, when he was
twenty-five years of age, and completed it in 1495. He was, therefore,
twenty-five when the work began and sixty-five when it was finished.
In this gallery also is a very fine lectern, which is claimed to be even
an earlier work than the stalls. In one of the chapels of the church
(the Chapelle des Saints-Anges) is the wondrously carved door of the
_prévôté_ or chapter house. This work is older than the stalls and is
generally ascribed to the artist who fashioned the lectern. Certain
Roman figures or statuettes are to be found in the church, one let into
the pillar before the chapel of St. Veran, and another, that of a
senator, in the wall between this chapel and that of the Sacred Heart.
Behind the church is a poor, distracted-looking square, once the
cemetery, now the Place Godeau. It is shaded by three large chestnut
trees and contains some ancient houses, one notably with a two-arched
Romanesque window and another with the date 1524 carved above the
doorway. In the centre is a disconsolate column of bluish granite to
which is ignominiously fixed a brass water-tap. This column seems to
have wandered from some museum and to have lost both its way and its
label. There are those who affirm that it was a gift of the Phocæans to
the ancient town, others that it came from the temple of Mars; while
those who range less far believe it to be a Roman boundary stone or
_borne_. From this Place can be seen the great watch tower of Vence,
often called the tower of the castle. It is square and very severely
plain, and contains the belfry and a too modern clock. The tower belongs
to the fifteenth century, or to even an earlier period. From this square
can also be seen a little lancet window of the church which is perhaps
the oldest of its present lights.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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