Saint-Michel Church, Dijon (Église Saint-Michel de Dijon)

What you will see

Stand in the square and read the façade from bottom to top: Doric, Ionic and Corinthian columns, one order per level, framing deep porches full of carved figures and ornament. Then step inside, where the Gothic nave rises 19.5 metres. The church holds many works of art. Look for a 15th-century stone Entombment, paintings of the 16th and 17th centuries and a graceful 18th-century pulpit. The Entombment, in the first chapel on the right, survives only in part, with five figures left, and came from the church of the Jacobins in Dijon. In the north aisle, a wall painting of the Dormition of the Virgin and the Trinity by Nicolas de Hoey stands 5 metres high, although its lower part is lost. Four paintings by Franz Anton Kraus come from the Chartreuse de Champmol, and the organ, bought at auction from the Sainte-Chapelle of Dijon in 1793, has stood here since 1829 in a carved case crowned by the Archangel Michael. Left of the choir, a rare 16th-century tomb slab shows its donors as kneeling skeletons on either side of Christ. Saint Elisabeth of the Trinity made her first communion here on 19 April 1891, and her relics rest in the north apse chapel.

History

The church was rebuilt from east to west in two main campaigns, from 1499 to 1513 and from 1520 to 1590, its nave still in the late Gothic tradition. The west front followed in the new Renaissance style: the south portal was finished in 1537 and the central portal in 1551. The two towers took much longer and were completed only in 1659 and 1667. The church has been listed as a historic monument since 1840.