Moulins Cathedral

About

Notre-Dame-de-l'Annunciation de Moulins Cathedral is a Roman Catholic cathedral located in Moulins, Allier department. It is the episcopal seat of the diocese of Moulins. Replacing a chapel of the late 10th century, originally dedicated to St Peter, the "College of Bourbons" was built at the end of the medieval era.

The oldest part of the present building, built in flamboyant Gothic style, its first stone was laid in 1468 by Agnes de Bourgogne, mother of John II of Bourbon, Duke of Bourbon, and widow of Duke Charles I of Bourbon. The work was completed in 1550. The college was erected as a cathedral in 1823 when the diocese of Moulins was founded.

The first bishop, Antoine de Pons de La Grange, took care of the enlargement of this church and his successor, Pierre Simon de Dreux-Brézé, undertook important work. He doubled the surface of the nave and added the two collaterals and the harmonic facade with its two 81-metre high arrows. These architectural additions are made in the same Gothic Revival style of the 12th century francilian gothic, under the influence of Eugène Viollet-le-Duc.

The Parisian architect Jean-Baptiste...