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Origin and history

The Notre-Dame de Dromon chapel, located in Saint-Geniez in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, is a religious building dating back to the 4th quarter of the 10th century and the 1st quarter of the 11th century. It was first mentioned in 1030, when the bishop of Gap gave it to the Abbey of Saint-Victor in Marseilles. Between the 11th and 16th centuries, the chapel was buried for unknown reasons, perhaps a landslide, before being rediscovered in 1656 by a shepherd, Honoré Masse, guided according to legend by an apparition of the Virgin. The excavations then revealed a crypt and the foundations of the original chapel, leading to its reconstruction that same year.

The crypt, the oldest part of the site, houses a fertile stone, a vestige of pagan worship that predates Christianity. This stone, originally in the form of a pregnant woman's belly, attracted sterile pilgrims from the seventeenth century. The sculpted capitals of the crypt, representing fertility patterns (peas, rams, wheat sheaves), reinforce this hypothesis. The chapel, partially collapsed between the 17th century and 1890, was restored several times, notably in 1976 to save its roof, and classified as a historic monument in 1997.

The present architecture of the chapel, reduced after successive collapses, includes two naves with vaults shot down in 1976 and a vaulted crypt in cradle. The site, built on a mountainside, presents traces of structural adaptations, as a north foothill rebuilt in 2010. The chapel was initially larger, but parts, including a sideline and a possible bell tower, collapsed. Its atypical orientation to the southeast, rather than eastward, is explained by its steep terrain position.

The liturgical furniture, now dispersed, included a statue of the Virgin in alabaster (displaced in 1974) and a 17th century altarpiece, stolen on an indefinite date. The crypt, a place of pilgrimage, also included a well or basin, possibly linked to a pre-Christian sacred source. Illegal excavations of the 20th century revealed buried steps, suggesting a lower original ground level. The subsidence of the land on the north side and the successive modifications reflect the challenges posed by this mountainous site.

The chapel illustrates the superimposition of cults, from pagan to Christian, in an isolated area where local traditions persisted for a long time. Its history combines legends (like the miraculous rediscovery of 1656), natural destruction, and restorations, reflecting the evolution of religious and architectural practices in Provence. Today, it remains a rare testimony of the cultural and spiritual transitions from the High Middle Ages to the modern era.

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