La Garde-Adhémar - St Michel

A chapel dedicated to St-Michel in La Garde-Adhémar is mentioned as early as 1105, but the present church was certainly not built until 40 years later (at the same time as the church in Bourg- St-Andéol on the other side of the Rhône, and the Cathedral in St- Paul-Trois-Châteaux). The church was restored in 1849/50 at the instigation of Prosper Mérimée.

With its simple clear architectural forms St-Michel, although situated in the extreme south of the Dauphiné, is typical of Provençal Romanesque - a lack of figure- decoration, little articulation and masonry precisely shaped and assembled.

Its three aisles form a square, on the east side are three apses but no transept. The nave has a barrel-roof and the side aisles a quarter-barrel which relieves the weight of the vault. Only the south wall and the apses have embrasure- like windows, so that practically the only light entering the building comes through the door. The west apse is an extremely rare feature in French Romanesque. In constrast to the rest of the church the tower bears on a massive square base a delicate octagon (the arches of the arcades have ovoid decoration and rest on pilasters with capitals modeled on those of antiquity). The west front, too, has bands of relief work, but these were probably added in the 19th C.