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Heritage classified

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Origin and history

The chapel Notre-Dame du Revest, located in Esparron-de-Pallières in the Var, is a 12th century Provencal Romanesque building, a vestige of a priory dating back to the 11th century. It belonged to the Saint-Victor Abbey of Marseilles and was built after the destruction of a Cassianite monastery by the Saracens in the eighth century. The site, rebuilt in the 11th century, served as a parish in the medieval village of Revest, now extinct.

The chapel, listed in the Supplementary Inventory of Historic Monuments in 1926, has a unique nave vaulted in a cradle, divided into four spans. Its current bell tower, built in 1869, replaces a precedent in ruins. In 2019, the bronze bell was stolen and replaced in 2022 by a new melted bell in Ginasservis, blessed by Bishop Rey of Fréjus-Toulon.

The adjacent cemetery, transferred in 1856, occupies the site of the old monastic buildings. Inside, two votive lacquers of the first centuries and a statue of Madonna nursing the Child (floured around 1974-1975) testify to her rich past. The site, which has been protected since 1934 as part of the surroundings, also preserves remains of the Revest Castrum, a medieval bastide abandoned before 1471.

The village of Revest, mentioned in a charter of 1177 by King Alphonse II of Aragon, was a fortified bastide with a small castle. Its 11 fires recorded in 1303-1304 disappeared before 1471, with its territory attached to Esparron. The ruins, partially looted for their materials, confirm its defensive organization around the Church of Our Lady, today the only surviving.

Architecturally, the chapel illustrates the Provencal Romanesque style, with double arches carried by pilasters. Its history reflects local medieval dynamics: post-Sarrasin reconstruction, religious and defensive role, and then decline linked to rural exodus. The successive protections (1926, 1934) underline its heritage importance in the Var.

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