Notre-Dame de la Garde

Chapel

In 1214, a priest named maître Pierre from Marseille felt inspired to construct a chapel devoted to the Virgin Mary on the hill called La Garde, which was under the ownership of the abbey of Saint-Victor. The abbot gave him authorization to plant vines, tend a garden, and build the chapel. The chapel was completed four years later and was officially recorded in a papal bull dated June 18, 1218 by Pope Honorius III, which listed the abbey's properties. Following the death of maître Pierre in 1256, Notre-Dame de la Garde was transformed into a priory. The prior of the sanctuary was also one of the four claustral priors of Saint-Victor.

Records of surviving wills demonstrate that the chapel had been receiving bequests since its inception. Moreover, sailors who survived shipwrecks used to offer gratitude and leave ex-votos at Notre-Dame of the Sea in the church of Notre-Dame-du-Mont. However, towards the end of the 16th century, they started to visit Notre-Dame de la Garde instead.

At the beginning of the 15th century, the original chapel was replaced by a more spacious edifice with a lavishly equipped chapel that was dedicated to Saint Gabriel.

16th to 18th centuries

In 1516, King Francis I of France's mother and wife visited him after his victory at Marignan. During their visit, the king noticed Marseille was poorly defended. He built two forts, including Chateau d'If, and a chapel, Notre-Dame de la Garde, to reinforce the city's defenses. The fort was finished in 1531 and the chapel in 1536. The fort remains visible on a spur west of the basilica and has a damaged escutcheon of François I above the door.

In 1585, the Catholic League of Provence led by Hubert de Garde de Vins failed to seize Marseille with the help of Louis de La Motte Dariès and Claude Boniface. The attack resulted in the execution of Dariès and Boniface.

In 1591, Charles Emmanuel, Duke of Savoy, tried to take the Abbey of Saint Victor with the help of Pierre Bon, but it was quickly retaken by Charles de Casaulx. In 1594, Charles de Casaulx took possession of the fort and named his son Fabio as its governor. However, after Charles was assassinated by Pierre de Libertat in 1596, Fabio was driven out of the fort by his own soldiers.

Louis XIII visited Notre-Dame de la Garde in Marseille on November 9, 1622, accompanied by the governor Antoine de Boyer. Georges de Scudéry became the governor in 1642, but he preferred living in the aristocratic quarter and entrusted the fort to a sergeant named Nicolas. In 1650, the governor of Provence attempted to install one of his men, David Caze, in La Garde to support an attack from Toulon, but the consuls of Marseille forced him to leave. Madeleine de Scudéry, a woman of letters, provided vivid descriptions of the area and festivals in her letters.

In 1701, the grandsons of Louis XIV visited the sanctuary while Sébastien Vauban proposed a vast enclosure to improve Marseilles' defenses, which was not followed through. During the Great Plague of Marseille in 1720, Bishop Henri de Belsunce went to the chapel at Notre-Dame de la Garde three times to bless the city's inhabitants.

Revolutionary period

In 1790, revolutionaries invaded a fort under the guise of attending mass, and in 1792, disrupted a religious procession by dressing a statue of the Virgin in revolutionary colors. In 1793, the church was closed, and in 1794, a statue of the Virgin made from silver was melted down at a mint in Marseille.

In 1793, Louis Phillipe, Duke of Orléans and his family were imprisoned in Notre-Dame de la Garde for weeks. They enjoyed the view despite the lack of amenities. Louise, Duchess of Bourbon, attended mass and spent hours on the fort's terrace. Princess Louise drew a picture of Marseille. Later, they were moved to Fort Saint-Jean.

On April 10, 1795, the sanctuary's objects were auctioned. Joseph Escaramagne rented the nationalized chapel and asked to reopen it in September 1800, but faced opposition. The chapel finally reopened on April 4, 1807. Escaramagne bought an 18th-century statue of the Virgin, which he offered to La Garde church. The statue, called "Virgin of the bouquet," was replaced by a new silver statue in 1837 and given to Montrieux charterhouse before returning to the sanctuary in 1979. It is now displayed on the altar in the crypt.

Renaissance of the sanctuary

The history of the Chapel of Notre-Dame de la Garde is marked by significant events that have contributed to its development and recognition as an iconic landmark of Marseille, France. One of these events was the reopening of the chapel for worship, which occurred in 1814. On this occasion, a procession from Marseille Cathedral brought to the sanctuary the statue that Escaramagne had purchased. The traditional procession of the Fête-Dieu also resumed, with the gunners of the city guard and barefoot penitents carrying Our Lady of the Guard into town, greeted by several cannon blasts. The chapel itself had become a popular destination for visitors, leading to its expansion in 1833 with the addition of a second nave, consecrated by the bishop of Marseille, Fortuné de Mazenod.

The Duchess of Berry, after escaping a shipwreck while returning from Naples, climbed to the chapel on June 14, 1816, and left a silver statuette as an ex voto, although it was later melted down. The daughter of Louis XVI and Duchess of d'Angoulême, Marie Therese of France, also visited the chapel in May 1823, braving strong mistral winds to admire the view from the terrace. François-René de Chateaubriand, a distinguished visitor, also visited in 1838.

Thanks to various offerings, a new statue of the Virgin was commissioned to replace the one melted down during the French Revolution. Marseilles goldsmith Jean-Baptiste Chanuel, based on a model by the sculptor Jean-Pierre Cortot, created a delicate work of hammered gold that was finished in 1834. The statue was blessed by Fortuné de Mazenod in 1837 and placed on the hill, replacing the Virgin of the Bouquet, which was given to the Montrieux Charterhouse. The rebuilding of the bell tower in 1843 was accompanied by the purchase of a bourdon from the Lyons foundry of Gédéon Morel. It was cast on February 11, 1845, and arrived in Marseille on September 19, 1845, and was named "Marie Joséphine."

The bell was placed in Jean-Jaurès square and blessed on Sunday, October 5, 1845, by Eugène de Mazenod, with the names of its godfather and godmother engraved on it. On October 7, the bell was placed on a harnessed carriage of sixteen horses and descended through several streets in Marseille, with ten horses added to the convoy until it reached twenty-six. The ascent of the bell up the hill began on October 8, using capstans, and concluded on October 10, when the bell arrived at the summit. The bell was set up on Wednesday, October 15, and rang out its first notes on December 8, the day of Immaculate Conception.

Construction of the current basilica

In 1850, Father Jean-Antoine Bernard requested permission to expand the existing chapel on Notre-Dame de la Garde. However, this request was denied by the Minister of War, and he resigned from his position.

A more precise request was submitted in April 1851, calling for the construction of a new and larger church, essentially doubling the area of the existing building. The fortifications committee advocated the proposal in January 1852, and authorization to build a new chapel was given on February 5, 1852.

Various architects were asked to submit their designs, and Leon Vaudoyer's project was commissioned. Henri-Jacques Espérandieu, Vaudoyer's former pupil, drew up the plans. Work began in 1853, but financial problems quickly developed because the foundations had to be laid in very hard rock.

The financial shortfall grew larger when the sanctuary commission decided to enlarge the crypt. Building stopped from 1859 to 1861, the year of Monseigneur Mazenod's death. The new bishop, Patrice Cruice, resumed work, and the sanctuary was dedicated on June 4, 1864.

In 1867, a cylindrical pedestal or belfry was built on the square bell tower to receive the monumental statue of the virgin. The statue was financed by the town of Marseille. Copper was chosen as the medium for the statue, and galvanoplasty was adopted to realize the statue.

Espérandieu had the statue made in four sections because of the difficulty of getting it up the hill and to the top of the bell tower. He inserted an iron arrow, the core of a spiral staircase to the Virgin's head, to be used for maintenance and sight-seeing.

A funicular, later called an elevator, was constructed in 1892 to ease the effort of climbing a hill. The base of the funicular was located at the lower end of Rue Dragon [fr], and the upper station led directly to a footpath leading to the terrace below the basilica, with only a short climb to the crypt level at 162 m (531 ft). The construction of the funicular took two years.

The funicular comprised of two cabins, each with a weight of 13 tons when empty, that moved on parallel cogged tracks. The movement was powered by a "hydraulic balance" system, where each cabin had a 12 cubic meter tank of water in addition to its two floors that could accommodate a total of fifty passengers. The cabins were linked by a cable, and the tank of the descending cabin was filled with water while the tank of the ascending cabin was emptied to initiate the system's movement. The vertical distance between the two stations was 84 m (276 ft).

At the end of each trip, the water collected at the foot of the apparatus was brought back to the top with a 25-horsepower steam-powered pump. Although the travel time was only two minutes, filling the upper tank took more than ten minutes, causing delays between departures despite the often considerable crowds. The final challenge after ascending was crossing the 100-meter footbridge up the steep slope, built by Gustave Eiffel. The footbridge was only 5 meters (16 ft) wide and very exposed to the mistral winds.

On August 15, 1892, the number of visitors exceeded 15,000, but the arrival of automobiles led to the funicular's demise. On September 11, 1967, at 18:30, the unprofitable funicular was shut down, after transporting 20 million passengers over 75 years. It was eventually demolished.

Crypt

Marble statues of Bishop Eugène de Mazenod and Pope Pius IX, carved by Joseph-Marius Ramus, greet visitors in the entrance hall under the bell tower. Staircases on either side lead to the church above.

The Romanesque crypt features a nave with low barrel vaults and six side chapels, each dedicated to a saint and containing plaques with donors' names. The main altar, built of Golfolina stone and Spanish marble columns, holds a statue of the Madonna with a bouquet. The dimly lit crypt is devoted to saints Philomena, Andrew, Rose, Henry, Louis and Benedict Labre.

Off-limits to the public, two staircases beside the main altar lead to the sacristy buildings and the choir above.

Bell tower

The bell tower is 41 meters high with two identical storeys of five blind arches. The belfry has three-light windows and is covered by a square terrace enclosed by a stone balustrade with four statues carved by Eugène-Louis Lequesne. A cylindrical bell tower rises from the terrace to a height of 12.5 meters, made of red granite columns supporting a 11.2 meters tall statue of the Virgin Mary. The bronze doors by Henri Révoil lead to the church, with the main entrance decorated with a mosaic of the Assumption of the Virgin.

Upper church

The nave is 32.7m x 14m with 1,200 m2 of mosaics and red/white marble columns. A red marble with yellow and white veins was used along with plaster for higher parts. The mosaics, made from Venetian tesserae, were created by Mora between 1886-1892 and have around 12 million small squares. The floors have 380 m2 of Roman mosaics.

Nave

The nave has three equal parts, each with a window illuminating a side chapel. The external pilasters and arches alternate green and white stones. Basement windows provide light to the underground chapels. The clerestory has two-light windows that illuminate the domes. Three cupolas are decorated with flower mosaics and doves. Each cupola has different flower colors and medallions on the pendentives show Old Testament scenes.

Transept

The transept runs east to west and has two paired windows with rose windows above. An octagonal tholobate supports a dome with 32 ribs and a cross on top. The dome has four angels holding a wreath of roses for the Virgin Mary, and the pendentives have representations of the Four Evangelists. The tympanum above the apse shows the Annunciation of Mary. The semicircular apse has five blind arches on the outside, and part of it is hidden by later-added sacristy buildings.

Choir

The altar, designed by Henri Révoil and built by Jules Cantini in 1882-1886, has a base of five gilded bronze arches on lapis lazuli colonettes. The tabernacle is framed by two columns and two dove mosaics. Behind the altar stands a red marble column with a silver Mary statue on top, made by Chanuel of Marseille.

The semi-dome mosaic in the apse depicts a ship with a Mary monogram on its sail and an intertwined A and M in the sky. Peacocks, parrots, and other birds surround it. The band beneath the semi-dome has nine medallions representing various titles of Mary from the Litany of Loreto.

External restoration

Despite the fact that most of the stones utilized were highly durable, the green Golfolina stone was an exception. This hard and exquisite stone quickly deteriorated when exposed to pollutants from industrial and domestic sources, particularly coal smoke, and was found to have corroded to a depth of 3 to 5 cm. As the original quarry near Florence had been closed for a long time, a new source was sought. A vineyard quarry close to Chianti was able to provide 150 cubic meters of Golfolina. The defective stone was replaced with stone that was treated to resist pollution. In addition, rusting metal reinforcements caused some of the stones to split. Two sets of reinforcements posed a significant challenge: those encircling the top of the bell tower to reinforce it against the swinging of the bell, and those around the upper part of the bell tower that supported the monumental statue. Some of the reinforcements were treated with cathodic protection, while others were replaced with stainless steel.

Interior restoration

The significance of interior work cannot be overstated. The higher areas of the building had water-damaged stuccos that required redoing, while bullet or shell damage to mosaic panels had previously been addressed through a rushed and subpar technique involving replacing missing tiles with plaster covered in paint. Additionally, all the mosaics had become blackened due to candle smoke, and those in danger of falling apart needed consolidation through resin injections. The most severely affected area was the central cupola of the nave, where all the gold mosaics had to be replaced.

To undertake the restoration of the mosaics, Michel Patrizio, an artist from Marseille, was chosen. His workers received training in traditional mosaic skills at the school of Spilimbergo in Friuli, located in northern Venice. The mosaic tiles themselves were supplied by the Orsoni Venezia 1888 workshop in Venice, the same workshop that had produced the originals.