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Heritage classified

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Origin and history

The former Romanesque house, located at n°5 rue Saint-Aignan in Angers, is a 4th quarter building of the 12th century, originally identified as the canonial house Sainte-Croix, attested from 1415. The main body and its right wing preserve Romanesque remains, including bays mothed in the middle of the wall on the facade and the old courtyard, as well as a capital exposed to the Museum of Fine Arts. The right wing was redesigned at the end of the 15th century, while the adjacent house (n°7), dating from the 14th to 15th centuries, was modified in the 16th and 17th centuries (doors, windows). A 16th century staircase tower serves both buildings.

The residence, long confused with the parish church of Saint-Aignan, was acquired in 1869 by the Little Sisters of Saint-François d'Assisi, who built there a neo-Roman chapel dedicated to the Immaculate Conception in the main body of the twelfth century. Glass windows (listed in the Palissy base) and neo-Roman bays were added at that time. A third house was built in 1870 south of the rear courtyard. In 1925, a painting depicting Saint Francis decorated the portal of n°7. Since 1967, the site has been home to the Foyer Saint-François, dependent on the private lycée du Sacré-Coeur, including the former house of the Chapel Saint-Blaise (n°1).

The Romanesque facades, unobstructed and restored in 2002, reveal a large-scale work in schist stoneware with tuft trimmings, partially preserved. The roofs, with long panels and rumps, cover elevations to a square floor. The ensemble, inscribed in the Historical Monuments in 1994, illustrates the architectural evolution of the site, from medieval origins to transformations of the 19th and 20th centuries. The present property also includes commons and additions from the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries, reflecting its continued religious and educational use.

In the early 19th century, the court was set aside, followed by the court of commons after 1840. The staircase in screws, covered with a roof in the pavilion, serves the houses n°5 and n°7. The 17th-century house body (No.7) has a square floor and a long-paned roof, while the 1870 building, in schist stone, has two square floors and a broken roof. Two wooden staircases, back with day, complete the set, showing the successive adaptations of the site.

Originally linked to canonical life, the house was transformed into a place of worship and reception in the 19th century, then an educational home in the 20th century. Its history thus combines religious, architectural and social heritage, with material traces ranging from the Middle Ages to the contemporary era.

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