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Heritage classified

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Origin and history

The Orange Gate is the last visible vestige of the ramparts built around Carpentras in the 14th century. Initiated in 1357 by Pope Innocent VI, these ramparts covered 1,770 metres, with 32 towers and four directional gates (to Mazan, Monteux, Orange and Pernes-les-Fontaines). The Orange Gate, completed in 1392, marked the northern access of the city, on the axis leading to Orange. These fortifications, compared by Prosper Mérimée to a "miniature version of Avignon", were mostly destroyed in the 19th century, leaving only this door and a section near the Avignon road.

The Orange Gate was listed as a historic monument on August 1, 1896, after being documented by Prosper Mérimée during his inspections in 1834 and 1845. The latter observed the gradual disappearance of the ramparts between his two visits, reflecting the urban transformations of the 19th century. Today, the building belongs to the municipality of Carpentras and remains an architectural testimony of medieval defensive systems in Provence, linked to papal influence in the region.

The walls of Carpentras illustrated the desire to protect an urban population during times of insecurity, typical of the fourteenth century in Provence. Their construction took place in a wider context of fortification of cities under pontifical authority, such as Avignon. The Orange Gate, by its conservation, offers a rare example of this military infrastructure, often sacrificed during the modernizations of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

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