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'Périgueux' () (in the Gascon dialect of Occitan language: ''Peireguers / Periguers'') is a commune of France, ''préfecture'' (capital) of the Dordogne ''département'' and the capital of the Périgord area in the Aquitaine ''région''. It is the seat of a Roman Catholic diocese.

Contents

History

Main sights

Cathédrale Saint-Front

External links

History

The name ''Périgueux'' comes from the Petrocorii (Latinized Celtic name, meaning "four tribes"), the Gallic people that held the area before the Roman conquest. Périgueux was their capital city.

Main sights

There are an amphitheater and a temple of a Gallic goddess.
A luxurious Roman villa, called the "Domus of Vesunna", built around a garden courtyard surrounded by a colonnaded perisink.

Cathédrale Saint-Front

The cathedral Saint-Front was built after 1120 AD and restored in the 19th century.
The history of the church of Saint-Front of Périgueux gave rise to numerous discussions between archæologists. Félix de Verneihl claims that Saint-Front was a copy of St. Mark's Basilica in Venice; Quicherat, that it was copied from the church of the Holy Apostles of Constantinople. M. Brutails is of opinion that if St. Front reveals an imitation of Oriental art, the construction differs altogether from Byzantine methods. The dates 984-1047, often given for the erection of Saint-Front, he considers too early; he thinks that the present church of Saint-Front was built about 1120-1173, in imitation of a foreign monument by a native local school of architecture which erected the other domed buildings in the south-west of France.
The local architect, Paul Abadie 1812-1884)was responsible for radical changes to Saint-Front which are no longer appreciated by architects or local residents who prefer the purer Romanesque church of Saint-Etienne de la Cité, the former Cathedral of Périgueux.
The cathedral is part of the World Heritage Sites of the Routes of Santiago de Compostela in France.

External links

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★ Vesunna Gallo-Roman Museum by Jean Nouvel

★ City council of Périgueux

★ Chat about Périgueux and the Dordogne (bilingue - bilingual)