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Origin and history

The Church of Our Lady of the Assumption of Lambesc, located in the Bouches-du-Rhône, was built between 1740 and 1741 by the Provencal architect Jean Vallon, on the site of an ancient church of the 13th century and the castle of Saint Eldrad. Its style, marked by an eight-paned dome and a pyramidal façade, is inspired by the late Italian Renaissance. The building houses ten chapels richly decorated with altars, altarpieces and paintings by local artists, including Michel-François Dandré-Bardon and Nicolas Mignard. The sculptor Ambroise Pascal Liotard decorated the facade in 1863.

The cross of the transept, surmounted by a dome illuminating the interior, lost its original stained glass windows (representing the Assumption and the seven sacraments) after the earthquake of 1909, which seriously damaged the bell tower's arrow. Among the remarkable chapels, that of Saint Crépin and Saint Crépinien houses a painting by Dandré-Bardon commissioned by the brotherhood of the shoemakers, while the chapel Notre-Dame-de-Lourdes exhibits a work by Mignard. Several elements (retreadable, statues, paintings) are classified as historical monuments, including a painting by Jean Daret (1911) and marble baptismal fonts (1975).

The three-key organ, designed by Joseph Isnard, was designed to accommodate the choir of the cathedral of Aix-en-Provence. The church, owned by the commune, was classified as a historical monument on 8 March 1982. Its interior mixes marbles, frescoes (like that of Jean-Joseph Kapeller in the chapel of the Crucifixion) and sculptures, testifying to its central role in Provencal religious and artistic life. Father Jean-Probace Castellan was parish priest from 1802 to 1809.

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