Saint-Pierre de Montmartre

About

The church Saint-Pierre de Montmartre is a Roman Catholic parish church located in the 18th arrondissement of Paris, at the top of the Montmartre hill, at no 2 rue du Mont-Cenis, west of the Sacré-Coeur basilica. It is one of the two Catholic parish churches of the hill, with the church Saint-Jean de Montmartre, and it represents, since the French Revolution, the oldest parish church in Paris after that of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. It succeeds a Merovingian basilica dedicated to Saint Denis, of which five capitals and four marble columns have been reused in the present church, the columns coming themselves from an ancient temple.

Very dilapidated at the beginning of the twelfth century, the old basilica was acquired by King Louis the Gros in 1133, who replaced it with a new Romanesque church, consecrated in 1147 by Pope Eugene III. At the same time, Queen Adelaide de Savoie founded an abbey of Benedictine nuns south of the church, known as the Royal Abbey of Montmartre. The church is therefore parish and abbey at the same time.

The construction of the nave did not end until after the middle of the 12th century, and the apse was rebuilt in style...