Destination Pyrénées-Orientales

The Campo Santo: The biggest and the oldest funerary cloister in France...

The cloister was built on the initiative of the abbot Guillaume Jorda between 1300 and 1330. The current building is composed of four 54-metre-long arcades and includes on three sides a range of ''enfeus'' ( flat-bottomed funerary niche ) cut in marble limestone from Baixas. The four arcades of the cloister were once covered with a wooden lean-to supported by sculpted-capital columns . Every ''enfeu'', that has refined Gothic shapes , is illustrated with escutcheons belonging to rich noble and middle-class families of Catalonia . A central ossuary was digged in 1321 to bury poor poeple .

After the French Revolution , the cloister was in worrying health conditions . It was closed down and rehabilitated by the Army that used it as warehouses and stables . A new structure was built in 1825 inside the old cemetery to create a big diocesan seminary . The new structure caused the pulling down of the west arcade and the dismantling of the open-works, except that at the North.

Contact :
La Campo Santo
Tel : 00 33 4 68 51 19 80
Rue Amiral ribeill 66000 Perpignan
Email : contact-office@perpignan.fr

Website : www.perpignantourisme.com