Musee Petite Palais

We all met back at the apartment for lunch, then after lunch, Doug was on his own for the Petit Palais museum, one of the leading European museums of medieval art. Set in the former palace of Cardinal Arnaud de Via (died in 1335), nephew of Pope John XXII, which then became the palace of the Archbishop of Avignon, and was renovated in the late 1400’s by the Archbishop Julien de la Rovère who later became Pope Jules II.

It has a fabulous collection of paintings from the Middle Ages and the Italian Renaissance. The Petit Palais museum also displays significant holdings from the Avignon School from the 13th to the 16th centuries and medieval sculptures from the 12th to the 16th centuries, from Avignon and the surrounding area.

It was an very educational exhibition that showed the rapid development of artistic style from the late Gothic 1300's to the dawn of the Renaissance in 1400.

Nancy and Jan took a 45 minute "tourist train" through the town and realized just how many interesting and picturesque spots lie in this still walled city, rare in Europe. When the Pope moved to this town of 6000 it became Europe's largest construction zone growing to 25,000. Today 13,000 people live within the walls.Read more