Beaune - Hôtel-Dieu

Beaune's main sight is the famous Hôtel-Dieu, a hospital for the poor built by Chancellor Nicolas Rolin and his wife in the mid 15th C. This is a typical example of Flemish Gothic (architect Jacques Wiscrère), a long half-timbered building with a colorful roof of glazed tiles laid in geometric patterns and a picturesque courtyard surrounded by two tiers of galleries. In the courtyard, in front of the main hospital ward (which remained in use until 1971), is a wrought-iron well-head.

The Hôtel-Dieu now houses a museum, notable particularly for a large polyptych of the Last Judgment by Rogier van der Weyden (between 1442 and 1450) and a number of tapestries. Visitors can also see the old hospital ward, the chapel, the kitchen and the pharmacy, still with their medieval furnishings.