Марсельдегі Нотр-Дам-де-ла-Гард базиликасы

Basilica located in Marseille, France

Notre Dame de la Garde (literally: Our Lady of the Guard), known to local citizens as la Bonne Mère (French for 'the Good Mother'), is a Catholic basilica in Marseille, France, and the city's best known symbol. The site of a popular Assumption Day pilgrimage, it is the most visited site in Marseille. It was built on the foundations of an ancient fort at the highest natural point in Marseille, a limestone outcropping on the south side of the Old Port of Marseille. Construction of the basilica began in 1853 and lasted for over forty years. It was originally an enlargement of a medieval chapel but was transformed into a new structure at the request of Father Bernard, the chaplain. The plans were made and developed by the architect Henri Jacques Espérandieu. It was consecrated while still unfinished on 5 June 1864. The basilica consists of a lower church or crypt in the Romanesque style, carved from the rock, and an upper church of Neo Byzantine style decorated with mosaics. A square bell tower topped by a belfry supports a monumental statue of the Madonna and Child, made of copper gilded with gold leaf. An extensive restoration from 2001 to 2008 included work on mosaics damaged by candle smoke, green limestone from Gonfolina which had been corroded by pollution, and stonework that had been hit by bullets during the Liberation of France. The restoration of the mosaics was entrusted to Marseille artist Michel Patrizio, whose workmen were trained in Friuli, north of Venice, Italy. The tiles were supplied by the workshop in Venice which had made the originals.

The rocky outcrop upon which the basilica would be built is an Urgonian limestone peak dating from the Barremian and rising to a height of 162 metres. Due to its height and proximity to the coast, the hill became an important stronghold and lookout point, as well as a landmark for sailing. In 1302 Charles II of Anjou ordered one of his ministers to set beacons along the Mediterranean coast of Provence. One of these beacon sites was the hill of Notre Dame de la Garde.

In 1214 maître (master) Pierre, a priest of Marseille, was inspired to build a chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary on the hill known as La Garde, which belonged to the abbey of Saint Victor. The abbot granted him permission to plant vines, cultivate a garden and build a chapel. The chapel, completed four years later, appears in a June 18, 1218 papal bull by Pope Honorius III listing the possessions of the abbey. After maître Pierre died in 1256, Notre Dame de la Garde became a priory. The prior of the sanctuary was also one of four claustral priors of Saint Victor. From the time the chapel was founded, surviving wills show bequests in its favour. but the present basilica was built on the foundations of a 16th century fort erected by Francis I of France to resist the 1536 siege of Marseille by the Emperor Charles V during the Italian War of 1536–38.

On January 3, 1516 Louise of Savoy, the mother of Francis I of France, and his wife, Queen Claude of France, daughter of Louis XII, went to the south of France to meet the young king, right after from his victory at Marignan. On January 7, 1516, they visited the sanctuary. On January 22, 1516, Francis accompanied them to the chapel as well. The king noted during his visit that Marseille was poorly defended. The need to reinforce its defenses became even more obvious in 1524 after the Constable of Bourbon and emperor Charles V lay siege to the city and almost took it. François I built two forts: one on the island of If, which became the famous Chateau d'If, the other at the top of La Garde, which included the chapel. This is the only known example of a military fort sharing space with a sanctuary open to the public. The Chateau d'If was finished in 1531, while Notre Dame de la Garde was not completed until 1536, when it was used to help repel the troops of Charles Quint. It was built using stone from Cap Couronne, as well as materials from buildings outside the ramparts of the demolished city to keep them from providing shelter to enemy troops. Among these was the monastery of the Mineurs brothers where Louis of Toulouse was buried near the and Cours Saint Louis. The fort was a triangle with two sides of approximately 75 metres and a third of 35 metres. This rather modest fort remains visible on a spur west of the basilica, which was restored in 1993 to its original state when a 1930 watch tower was removed. Above the door can be seen a very damaged escutcheon of François I, the arms of France, three fleurs de lys with a salamander below. Nearby, to the right, is a rounded stone weathered by time which once represented the lamb of John the Apostle with its banner.

In 1585 Hubert de Garde de Vins, chief of the Catholic League of Provence, sought to seize Marseille and combine forces with , the second consul of Marseille, and Claude Boniface, captain of the Blanquerie neighborhood. On the night of April 9, 1585, Dariès occupied La Garde, from which his guns could fire on the city. But the attack on Marseille failed, leading to the execution of Dariès and his accomplice, Boniface. In 1591 Charles Emmanuel, Duke of Savoy, tried to seize the Abbey of Saint Victor, a stronghouse near the port. He charged Pierre Bon, baron de Méolhon, governor of Notre Dame de la Garde, with seizing the abbey. On November 16, 1591, Méolhon did so but it was quickly retaken by , first consul of Marseille. in 1594. He sent two priests, Trabuc and Cabot, to celebrate mass in the chapel. Trabuc wore armour under his cassock and after the ceremony killed the captain of the fort. Charles de Casaulx took possession of it and named his son Fabio its governor. After the assassination of Charles de Casaulx on February 17, 1596, by , Fabio was driven out of the fort by his own soldiers.

While in Marseille on November 9, 1622, Louis XIII rode in spite of the rain to Notre Dame de la Garde. He was received by the governor of the fort, Antoine de Boyer, lord of Bandol. When the latter died on June 29, 1642, Georges de Scudéry, mainly known as a novelist, was named governor, but he did not take up his post until December 1644. He was accompanied there by his sister, Madeleine de Scudéry, a woman of letters who gave in her letters many descriptions of the area as well as of various festivals and ceremonies. "Last Friday you could see the citadel covered from head to foot with ten or more flags, the bells of our tower swinging, and an admirable procession returning to the castle. The statue of Notre Dame de la Garde holding in her left arm the naked child and in her right hand, a bouquet of flowers, was carried by eight shoeless penitents veiled like ghosts." Georges de Scudéry scorned the fort and preferred to live at , the aristocratic quarter of the time. The stewardship of the fort was entrusted to a mere sergeant, named Nicolas. In the 1650 Caze affair, the governor of Provence, the Count of Alais, opposed the Parliament of Provence in the Fronde and wanted to put down the revolt in Marseilles. Since La Garde was a desirable strategic position, he bribed Nicolas and on August 1, 1650, installed there one of his men, David Caze. He hoped to support an attack by galleys from Toulon, a city faithful to him.

In April 1793, the King's cousin Louis Phillipe, Duke of Orléans was imprisoned in Notre Dame de la Garde for several weeks, along with two of his sons, the Duke of Montpensier and the Count of Beaujolais, his sister Louise, Duchess of Bourbon, and the Prince of Conti. Despite the lack of amenities in the old apartments of the governor, the prisoners enjoyed the panorama. Each day the Duchess of Bourbon attended mass then went to the fort's terrace and often remained as much as two hours in contemplation. The princess Louise, who painted well, left behind a pencil drawing of Marseille as seen from the Virgin of Notre Dame de la Garde. The prisoners were then transferred to Fort Saint Jean.

The last of the objects from the sanctuary were auctioned off on April 10, 1795. The chapel was nationalized and rented to Joseph Escaramagne. A former ship's captain who lived in what is now the current place du Colonel Edon, Escaramagne had a deep devotion to the Virgin. After worship resumed in some parishes, he wrote in September 1800 to the Minister of War, Lazare Carnot, asking to reopen the sanctuary. But prefect Charles François Delacroix voiced opposition when the minister consulted him. The chapel finally re opened for worship on April 4, 1807. Escaramagne bought at auction an 18th century statue of the Virgin and child from a monastery of the Picpus Fathers that had been demolished during the Revolution. He offered the statue to the La Garde church. The scepter that the virgin had held was replaced by a bouquet of flowers, hence the statue became known as the "Virgin of the bouquet". To make way for a new silver statue created in 1837, this statue was given to the Montrieux charterhouse, then returned in 1979 to the sanctuary. The statue of the Virgin of the bouquet is currently displayed on the altar in the crypt.

On the day the chapel of Notre Dame de la Garde was reopened for worship, a procession started from Marseille Cathedral, bringing to the sanctuary the statue that Escaramagne had bought. The traditional procession of the Fête Dieu (Corpus Christi Day) resumed in 1814. Julie Pellizzone mentions this event in her diary: "On Sunday June 12, 1814, Fête Dieu, the gunners of the city guard went in the morning with barefoot penitents to get Our Lady of the Guard and to bring her into town, according to the ancient custom. She was greeted by several cannon blasts. Mass was said, then she was brought here, carried by penitents with their hoods covering their faces, a procession such as had not taken place since the Revolution.

During this period the fort itself went almost unused while the number of people visiting the chapel increased significantly. This increase was so great that the 150 square meter chapel was extended in 1833 with the addition of a second nave, which increased its area to approximately 250 square meters. The bishop of Marseilles, , consecrated this chapel in 1834.

After escaping a shipwreck while returning from Naples, the Duchess of Berry climbed to the chapel on June 14, 1816, and left a silver statuette as an ex voto – although the statue was melted down a few years later. Marie Therese of France, daughter of Louis XVI and Duchess of d'Angoulême, climbed to Notre Dame de la Garde on May 15, 1823, which was a day of strong mistral winds. Despite the wind, the duchess remained on the terrace, struck by the beauty of the view. In 1838 the Virgin of the Guard had another distinguished visitor: François René de Chateaubriand. In 1947, Pope John Paul II, then still Father Karol Wojtyla, visited the basilica. Pope Francis visited the Notre Dame de la Garde basilica on September 22, 2023.

Thanks to various offerings, notably a gift of 3000 francs that the Duchess of Orleans made while travelling through Marseille in May 1823, a new statue of the Virgin was commissioned to replace the one melted down during the French Revolution. In 1829, Marseilles goldsmith Jean Baptiste Chanuel, an artisan with a workshop in the , began work on this statue based on a model by the sculptor Jean Pierre Cortot. This very delicate work of hammered gold was finished five years later, in 1834. On July 2, 1837, blessed the statue on the , which was then brought to the top of the hill. It replaced the Virgin of the Bouquet, which was given to the Montrieux Charterhouse. The Virgin of the Bouquet was later returned to the crypt in 1979. The two statues, the Virgin of the Bouquet and the silver Virgin, thus pre date the basilica where they are displayed.

On June 22, 1850, Father Jean Antoine Bernard, who took responsibility for the chapel, asked the Ministry of War to authorise an expansion of the existing building. This request was denied on October 22, 1850, the day he resigned, by Minister of War Alphonse Henri d'Hautpoul, for being too vague. He agreed to the expansion in theory but invited a more precise proposal. On April 8, 1851, a more precise request was submitted, calling for the construction of a new and larger church, essentially doubling the area of the existing building. This design would mean that there would no longer be room for military buildings inside the fort. Thanks to the support of General Adolphe Niel, the fortifications committee advocated the proposal on January 7, 1852. Authorization to build a new chapel was given by the Minister of War on February 5, 1852.

On November 1, 1852, Monseigneur Eugene de Mazenod requested offerings from the members of the parish. Studies were requested from various architects. The administration council of the chapel met with Mazenod almost two months later, on December 30. The proposal presented by Leon Vaudoyer, who worked at the Marseille Cathedral, was the only one of Romano Byzantine style; the others were Neo Gothic. Each project received five votes, but the vicar's tie breaking vote went to Vaudoyer, whose project was commissioned. The plans were in fact drawn up by Henri Jacques Espérandieu, his former pupil who was only twenty three years old. On June 23, 1853, Espérandieu was named as architect and developed the project. While he was Protestant, it does not seem that his religion was a major cause of the difficulties he encountered with the committee in charge of the work. The committee decided, without consulting him, not to open up labour for competitive bidding, but to award it directly to Pierre Bérenger (on August 9, 1853), contractor and architect of the Saint Michel church. He himself had proposed one of the Neo Gothic plans and was a close relative of Monseigneur Mazenod. The commission also imposed their choice of artists, such as sculptor Joseph Marius Ramus and the painter Karl Müller of Düsseldorf, without concern for whether their works would fit within the structure. Karl Müller's commission was later rejected, which allowed the architect to direct mosaics as the decor.

The first stone was laid by the bishop of Marseille, Monseigneur de Mazenod, on September 11, 1853. Work began but financial problems quickly developed because the foundations had to be laid in very hard rock. In 1855, the government authorized a lottery, but this produced less revenue than anticipated. The financial shortfall grew larger when the sanctuary commission decided to enlarge the crypt to run not only under the choir, but to extend under the entire higher vault. In spite of a loan secured by the personal assets of the bishop, building stopped from 1859 to 1861, the year of Mazenod's death. The new bishop, , arrived at the end of August in 1861, and resumed work. The generosity of citizens of all religions and all social positions allowed completion of the work, from the Emperor Napoleon III and the Empress Eugénie, who visited Notre Dame de la Garde on September 9, 1860, to the poorest of Marseillais. The sanctuary was dedicated on Saturday June 4, 1864, by the Cardinal of Villecourt, a member of the Roman curia, in the presence of forty three other bishops. In 1866, mosaic flooring was laid in the upper church and the square bell tower was finished; the bell was installed in October of the same year. In 1867, a cylindrical pedestal or belfry was built on the square bell tower to receive the monumental statue of the virgin. The statue was financed by the town of Marseille. Sketches for the statue made by three Parisian artists, Eugène Louis Lequesne, Aimé Millet and Charles Gumery were examined by a jury of Espérandieu the architect, Théodore Bernex, mayor of Marseilles, and Philippe Auguste Jeanron, director of the School of Fine Arts, , sculptor and professor of sculpture and Luce, president of the Civil Court and administrator of the sanctuary. The committee selected the proposal of Lequesne. For reasons of cost and weight, copper was chosen as the medium for the statue. A very new method for the time was adopted to realize of the statue: galvanoplasty, a type of electroplating, or "the art of moulding without the help of fire" was chosen over hammered copper. A scientific report of November 19, 1866, said that electrotype copper allowed an "irreproachable reproduction" and a solidity that left nothing to be desired. Only Eugène Viollet le Duc thought that the galvanoplasty technique would not long resist the atmospheric pollution in Marseilles. Espérandieu had the statue made in four sections because of the difficulty of getting it up the hill and to the top of the bell tower. He inserted into the center of the sculpture an iron arrow, the core of a spiral staircase to the Virgin's head, to be used for maintenance and sight seeing. This metal structure, used to support the statue, made it possible to assemble the whole by connecting it to the body of the tower. The execution of the statue, entrusted to the workshops of , was finished in August 1869. The first elements were assembled on May 17, 1870, and the statue was dedicated on September 24, 1870, but without fanfare, since defeat by the Prussian army dampened all spirits. The statue was gilded, which required gold, and regilding in 1897, 1936, 1963 and 1989. In March 1871 Gaston Crémieux formed the revolutionary Commune of Marseille. Helped by followers of Giuseppe Garibaldi, the rebels seized the Prefecture of the Rhone delta and took the prefect captive. On March 26, 1871, General retreated to Aubagne, but undertook to retake the city beginning on April 3. The rebels who took refuge in the prefecture took fire from the batteries installed in Fort Saint Nicolas and in Notre Dame de la Garde. They capitulated on April 4 and said that the Virgin had changed her name and should from then on be called "Notre Dame of bombardment"

Following the death of Espérandieu on September 11, 1874, Henri Révoil was charged with finishing the interior of the basilica, in particular the mosaics. The construction of the major crypt and installation of the mosaics in the choir was carried out in 1882. Unfortunately a fire on June 5, 1884, destroyed the altar and the mosaic in the choir; moreover the statue of the Virgin was damaged. The statue and the mosaics were restored and the altar was rebuilt according to the drawings of Révoil. On April 26, 1886, cardinal Charles Lavigerie consecrated the new crypt. In 1886, walnut stalls were built in the choir; the last mosaics in the side vaults were finished between 1887 and 1892. In 1897, the two bronze doors of the upper church and the mosaic above them were installed and the statue of the Virgin was regilded for the first time. Final completion of the basilica thus took place more than forty years after the first stone was laid.

In 1892 a funicular was built to reduce the effort of scaling the hill; it became known as the ascenseur or elevator. The base was at the lower end of The upper station led directly onto a footpath to the terrace beneath the basilica, leaving only a short climb to the level of the crypt at Construction took two years. The funicular consisted of two cabins each weighing 13 tons when empty, circulating on parallel cogged tracks. The movement was powered by a "hydraulic balance" system: each cabin, in addition to its two floors capable of holding fifty passengers total, was equipped with a 12 cubic meter tank of water. The cabins were linked by a cable; the tank of the descending cabin was filled with water and that of the ascending cabin emptied. This ballasting started the system moving. The vertical distance between the two stations was
The water collected at the foot of the apparatus at the end of each trip was brought back to the top with a 25 horsepower pump—true horsepower, because the pump was powered by steam. Travel time was two minutes, but filling the upper tank took more than ten minutes, forcing waits between departures, in spite of often considerable crowds. The last adventure after the ascent was crossing the 100 meter footbridge up the steep slope. Built by Gustave Eiffel, the footbridge was only wide and very exposed to the mistral winds. On August 15, 1892, the number of visitors exceeded , but the advent of the automobile killed the funicular. On September 11, 1967, at 18:30, the funicular was shut down as unprofitable. It was demolished after having transported 20 million passengers over 75 years.