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Origin and history

The church of St. Amans of Rodez, founded in the 12th century on the burial of St. Amans — the first bishop of Rodez in the 5th century — was at the same time parish church of the Comtal and Conventual Church of a Benedictine community attached to the Abbey of St. Victor of Marseilles. Although the archives lack on its Romanesque construction, its attachment to a powerful abbey probably allowed its construction. Consolidation work took place in the 16th and 17th centuries, but in 1750 the rupture of a metal draught threatened the vault, leading to its closure.

In 1751, a papal bubble secularized the property of Saint-Victor, making Saint-Amans independent. Justice then imposed on the religious to finance the restoration of the choir, and on the parishioners the restoration of the nave. In 1757, however, the engineer Jean-Baptiste Boësnier concluded that it was impossible to save the building. A royal estimate was drawn up for its reconstruction, with funding shared by the king. Boësnier, an amateur archaeologist and collaborator of the Count of Caylus, conceived a bold project: to preserve a Romanesque style inside (with the re-use of medieval capitals) while adopting a Baroque facade inspired by the Counter-Reform, moving away from models "to the Greek" then in vogue.

The reconstruction sétala from 1758 to 1761 (or 1764 depending on the sources), using local materials such as Cayssiols sandstone or Bozouls tuff. Capuchin brother François Cassagnes supervised the work, while painter Salinier decorated the dome of a fresco. The church incorporated saved Romanesque elements (sculpted chapels, frescoes) and baroque additions, such as the Corinthian pilaster portal. In the 19th century, it was equipped with an organ of 34 games by Puget (1885). Today, it preserves seven limousine tapestries of the sixteenth century illustrating the life of Saint Amans, as well as its body, making it a place of pilgrimage and major heritage in Occitanie.

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