Église Saint-Martin

Church of Saint Martin in Ambierle in the department of the Loire, is the former chapel of a monastery dedicated to Martin of Tours, founded by the Benedictines in the High Middle Ages and reduced priory in 1101, during his attachment to the order of Cluny. The present building was built in the fifteenth century on the remains of the first chapel, built in the eleventh century by Odilon de Cluny and destroyed by fire in 1441, along with the parish church. She received since the faithful of the parish. The church is characterized by its multicolored glazed tile roof of Burgundian style and a bell tower was added to the crossing in the early nineteenth century. It is home to remarkable fifteenth-century stained glass, bearing the arms of Antoine de Balzac Entragues, Bishop of Valence and Die and prior of Ambierle. She welcomes the altarpiece of the Passion, bequeathed to the priory in 1476 by Michel de Changy, Councillor Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy. It comprises in its central part six statues in polychrome walnut contained the Passion of Christ's crucifixion, the kiss of Judas, the floggings, the crowning with thorns, the deposition of cross, burial and resurrection. The shutters protecting the sculptures are decorated with paintings by specialists assigned to the Flemish master Rogier van der Weyden or an anonymous master, the master of Ambierle. The two small flaps on the top represent their outer side the Annunciation and on their inner side of the angels bearing the arms of families of Chaugy, Montagu and Jaucourt. The four components of the lower part are: On their outer side, Saint Anne, the Virgin and Jesus, St. Catherine, St. Margaret, St. Martin, on their inner side: St. Guillaume and Guillemette de Montaigu, St. John the Baptist and John Chaugy; Chaugy Michel and Saint Michael; Laurette Jaucourt and St. Lawrence. The church is listed on the first list of historical monuments established in 1840 by Prosper Merimee, while the facades and roofs of the Benedictine priory, galleries and vaulted rooms on the ground floor, the room on the first floor with its decor East Wing, facades and roofs of the south wing, including the city gate, the gallery of the cloister adjoining the church, the grand staircase in the wing separating the two courts are the subject of registration by order of May 12, 1975.