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Key figures

Origin and history

The church of Notre-Dame de Gizeux, located in the village of Indre-et-Loire, is a building whose construction spanned from the twelfth to the seventeenth century. It replaces a chapel dedicated to Saint Hermeland and retains a 12th century Romanesque apse, while its lateral chapels date back to the 16th-17th centuries. The bell tower, added in 1840, crowns an expansion inspired by the original Romanesque style, as evidenced by the vaulted nave in the cradle. The church houses 19th-century stained glass windows signed by the Lobin de Tours workshop, including a Charity of Saint Martin (1890).

Prior to the Revolution, Gizeux depended on the archiprired of Bourgueil (diocese of Angers) in Anjou, before being attached to Indre-et-Loire in 1790. The building, oriented north-west/south-east, is distinguished by its excentre east of the village, towards the castle. His classified furniture includes four funerary statues in white marble, works by sculptor Nicolas Guillain (1630): two golden couples (René and Marie du Bellay, Martin du Bellay and Louise de Savonnières) and a monument dedicated to Claude de Villequier, all linked to the Bellay family, local lords.

The tombs, classified between 1903 and 1908, illustrate the nobility alliances: René du Bellay, Martin's father, is the first cousin of the poet Joachim du Bellay. Under the chapel of the Virgin lay also the chestnuts of Gizeux, Louis-Gabriel-Marie de Contades and his wife (XIXth century). The historian Carré de Busserolle and the Roglo base document this seigneurial line, while the church, now integrated into the parish of Saint-Pierre-en-Bourguellois (2018), perpetuates this religious and artistic heritage.

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