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Origin and history

The Marble Cross, located in Place de la Croix de Marbre in Nice (Alpes-Maritimes), was erected in 1568 to replace a wooden cross destroyed in 1543 during the Ottoman siege. It commemorates the Congress of Nice (1538), where Francis I and Charles Quint, mediated by Pope Paul III, signed a truce ending the war between France and the Holy Empire. The original wooden monument marked the site where Paul III officiated in 1538, at the historic entrance of the city on the road to France.

The present monument, classified in 1906, is a marble edicle of white Carrara, surmounted by a dome with varnished tiles and supported by four original columns (1568). His stone pedestal bears a Latin inscription dating from his consecration, citing the names of the Nice consuls and of the council member Honoré Grimaldi Richier. The cross suffered multiple destructions: overturned by a storm in 1668, restored in 1733 and 1782-1783 (with the addition of varnished tiles and lead welding), then vandalized under the Management Board (1796) before being replaced in 1807.

In 1880, an act of malice definitively broke the original cross, replaced by a replica carved by Schaeffer. The monument is inseparable from the Column of the Pope, located opposite the same square, and from the suburb of the Cross of Marble, a quarter born in the 19th century around the monument. This suburb, then rural and vegetable area, became a popular place for the English winterers, who built a church and cemetery there in 1820. Its development was formalized by the Nice Regulatory Plan in 1854, marking its integration into the city.

The Marble Cross symbolizes both a major diplomatic event (the Peace of Nice) and the tumults of local history, between religious conflicts, weather and vandalism. Its Latin inscription and its original columns make it a rare testimony of the Nice Renaissance, while its successive restorations illustrate the Niçois' attachment to this heritage, despite the political vicissitudes (French Revolution) and natural.

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