Editions Sud Ouest

Moissac is one of the most outstanding of all mediaeval heritage sites. The famous Benedictine abbey still has its entire cloister with 76 capitals and carved pillars giving visitors a chance to admire the very earliest days of Romanesque sculpture in work created some thirty years before the superb tympanum above the South Door. After the charms of the cloister and the might of the westwork, the church, which was extensively rebuilt at the end of the Gothic period, delights visitors for the light flooding into its nave.

Several fine works from the 15th century and Renaissance period are on display and the Crucifix carved by the master responsible for the wonderful tympanum will stir anybody interested in Romanesque architecture.

Maurice SCELLÈS

Maurice Scellès is Heritage Curator with the regional offices of the Inventaire du Midi-Pyrénées and a member of the Société Archéologique du Midi de la France. In Moissac, Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val and Cahors, most of his books have focussed on the sculpture and architecture of the Middle Ages.