On the bridge of Avignon
On y danse, tous en rond
We awoke early, the Mistral driving us from our bed, and we crossed the short walk into the old walled town of Avignon. The walls were intact, their crenellated barrier separating old Avignon from the progress of time. Great towers peered out, ancient sentries whose old foes had disappeared long ago, remembered only as names in books, if even that. The walls were a mythical barrier and crossing them transported us through time to an era of grandeur and strife. An era when the Popes were not safe, even in Rome, when crossing a river was a phenomenal challenge.
We made our way through a labyrinth of streets to the grey shell of the Popes Palace, a windswept square before it. We entered the Hall of Dignitaries beneath two turrets. The ancient entrance was closed, the wood and iron bands decaying and rays of light piercing through.
Avignon had become the Papal residence when Clement V grew weary of wandering about Europe but was too afraid to settle in Rome. In 1309, the year of his arrival, Avignon was part of the Papal States, a separate entity from the Kingdom of France across the Rhone River. The location was also better for the spiritual Lords of Europe, at a crossroads between France, Spain and Italy, the strongest nations in Christendom. But from the moment of their arrival the Popes began efforts to return to Rome. The histories say that without the aura of power cast by the Eternal City the Popes were worried about their legitimacy but I think it had more to do with a desire to escape the Mistral.
The Courtyard of Honor was a paved square between the old palace, built at the command of Benedict XII, and the newer palace of Clement VI. It was a cold grey ugliness between cold grey and ugly walls. We hurried along the tour to the Treasury Hall. The Upper Treasury Hall, where the Pope's accountants would keep their record books, was full of displays. The coins of the realm, models of the Palace, the faces of the Popes. Of particular interest was the small display consisting of all the things that people would throw at the Popes while they were in residence in Avignon. From rocks, to catapult ammunition, spears and ballista bolts. The exhibit of the skull and the corresponding spear that was removed when the body was exhumed speaks volumes about the nature of theological disputes.
But it was the empty Lower Treasury that really caught our attention. A lager square stone chamber, only poorly lit, with uneven rock tiled floor. It was not very imposing. One could imagine racks of papal treasure here, walls dripping with gold and jewels. But it was under the floors where the real action was. The floor of the treasury was a disguise. It looked perfectly solid. Rock slabs resting against the rocks of the hills you could see outside. But underneath rectangular slabs a foot thick was the Pope's secret hoards of money. Without the audio guide and the slabs pried up in demonstration there would have been no way to know.
Above the treasuries was the Jesus Hall, an unimpressive room so named because of the X symbols on the wall.
From here we walked to the Consistory Hall, a long chamber filled with the relics of destroyed paintings. Paintings that had been slashed, punctured or beaten or that had merely rotted away with age in an unexplained display of artistic carnage.
We hurried into the upper cloister, then up a flight of stairs to the Grand Tinel. The Grand Tinel was the great dining hall of the Popes, a vast hall that echoed now to the footsteps of tourists. Here Popes and Cardinals and royal guests had dined beneath colorful tapestries. Strict etiquette applied and the Pope tested every meal with the liberal application of unicorn horns and sharks teeth to magically detect poisons. He also sat alone on a high dais overlooking the assembled faithful. It must be lonely to be Pope.
Here, in a bricked over arch hidden in one corner of the room, was the entrance to the Conclave. At the death of every Pope the wall was smashed in and the College of Cardinals sequestered behind iron bars, fed like prisoners through an iron grate in the wall until they decided on the
new Pope. Great incentive to choose quickly.
Behind the Grand Tinel was the tour of the kitchen. Instead of a fireplace the tower narrowed at the centre to a small aperture. Food was roasted on a great fire in the centre of the room, burning the flagstones on the floor.
Fire devastated the Palace of the Popes in 1431.
We descended into a bleak undecorated square of cold stone, the Chapelle Saint Martial. It is here that the Popes announced at Easter who was to be the recipient of the Golden Rose, a rose in solid gold with a sapphire gem. The recipient was to be the greatest Christian that year had produced. Here too he announced the recipient of the sword, belt and hat at Christmas, an even greater honor. But the glory left with the Popes. Now the room is merely dark and cold.
Finally we entered the Popes chamber, a dark blue room overgrown with intertwining vines and colonized by birds and squirrels, all in the paintings that decorate every wall. The Popes, it appears, loved captive birds, so much so that they painted their walls with them. The room is darkly beautiful. As beautiful as the Popes bedroom is, so too is the next one strange, the Stag Room. A large room decorated with the purely secular themes of the woodland hunt. Streams pour from the walls while trees reach for the ceiling. Men chase deer and haul fish from a pond while children cavort through the wilds. In one corner a pair of rabbits mates.
We exited to the Popes Balcony on which he could stand and bestow his blessings to the privileged few who filled the Courtyard of Honour on festival days. To our left was the Tour De La Gauche and we climbed it to the rooftops. Here the Papal guards mounted their watch each night, more to detect fires in the city than to discover the enemies that might be sneaking up to attack Avignon. The Mistral howled amidst the gothic sculptures and leering gargoyles. We fought our way to the terrace to peer down on the city but the wind ripped at us as we peered between the crenelations.
We returned to the Popes balcony and descend the Staircase of Honor to the great audience hall. A room as long as the great chapel, vaulted ceilings of bare rock. In one vault in the far corner the remains of a frescoe by Matteo Giovanni, painter to the Pope. The Palace of the Popes has been like great skeletal remains, abandoned by its mother church. Great events transpired here but when the Popes left they took with them the heart and soul of these buildings. All that remains is the dead bones, the calcified arteries and veins and organs of a colossal giant. But it is empty and it is cold.
We climbed to the neigbouring Cathedral Notre Dame des Doms. A glittering golden Mary, crowned by a halo of stars, looked down on us from her heights. The wind howled past her with blasphemous demonic fury. A couple was lost in each other charms beneath the Cathedral's cross and a poor man begged in the doorway beneath the riches. Life rolls ever on.
The church was magnificent, a dark grotto on a windy day. Dark niches line the walls, a faint beam of light descends from above on the altar, a crimson Bishops Chair is recessed into the wall, looking at the Popes Door from which the Popes emerged.
The statues of saints and holy figures are more sumptuous here than anywhere else, their vestments gleam in yellow light, bronze or gold I don’t know, but it is obvious that the Papal presence elevated this place above many others.
There is a concession shop next to the church, glass doors opening onto the sanctuary. There are faithful here but there are more tourists, who dig out money to buy pictures or chocolate bars. I cannot help but wonder what the Christ who overturned the stalls of the money changers in the temple would made of this new permutation of capitalism.
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