A royal foundation, a king painter

The Notre-Dame collegiate church was built in the 13th century on the site of an abbey founded in 511 by Saint Clotilde, wife of king Clovis and destroyed by the Vikings around the year 900.

It was undoubtedly the oldest monastery of Normandy, located in the district of Grand-Andely, the oldest in the city, the Petit-Andely having developed later around Château-Gaillard.

It is an imposing monument, with the dimensions of a cathedral, of which we especially admire today the external transformations of the 15th and 16th centuries: columns, pilasters and friezes in the antique made in the Renaissance on the north side, flames and bypassed shapes in the spirit of flamboyant architecture on the south side.

It contains several treasures, such as the Cavaillé-Coll organ set in a gallery with Renaissance sculpted wood panels signed Etienne Delaune, listed as a historic monument: we see characters representing the virtues, the liberal arts and the sciences, and mythological deities.

If the neighboring Nicolas Poussin museum keeps a good number of objects from the collegiate church, it has kept within its walls the works of famous painters: three paintings by Quentin Varin, and especially a Jesus found in the temple of Jacques Stella, a of the greatest artists of the 17th century, painter to King Louis XIII and friend of Nicolas Poussin, the most famous of the period and a native of the country.

The numerous stained-glass windows, which bathe the entire space in their light, are for some the work of great masters of the 15th and 16th centuries, such as Arnoult de Nimègue and Romain Buron. It is an important collection, illustrating the life of Saint Clotilde, Saint Peter or the Virgin.