Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The Palais Delphinal de Saint-Donat-sur-l'Herbass came into being in the eighth century, when Corbus, bishop of Grenoble, took refuge in the locality (then named Jovinzieu) to escape the Saracens in 732. He brought the relics of Saint Donat, a hermit of the sixth century, and built a palace and a church dedicated to the saint. The village then took the name Saint-Donat. For two centuries, the bishops of Grenoble lived there until the Saracens withdrew, when the site was entrusted to Augustine canons.

Between the 9th and 13th centuries, Saint-Donat became an issue of rivalry between the bishopric of Grenoble and the archdiocese of Vienna. An agreement in 1250 (mid-thirteenth century) finally retreaded the site in Vienna. The church, looted in 1562 during the Wars of Religion, then lost the relics of Saint Donat. In 1603 Prior Jean Chosson gave his rights to the Jesuits of Tournon, who negliged the maintenance of the buildings despite some attempts by canons. At the Revolution, in 1790, only three poor canons still occupied the premises, which were bought by the municipality in 1793.

The Delphinal Palace, classified as a Historical Monument in 1946, illustrates the architectural and political transformations of the region. Its history reflects religious conflicts (Sarrasins, Wars of Religion), power struggles between ecclesiastical institutions, and the gradual abandonment of the site in modern times. The neighbouring collegiate church, protected from 1906, retains elements from the twelfth, fourteenth and seventeenth centuries, as well as a modern organ (1968–71) dedicated to Jean-Sébastien Bach, bearing witness to a medieval and contemporary cultural heritage.

External links