Saint-Gatien Cathedral
From Easter to 11 November, you may meet volunteer welcomers from the Présence Cathédrale association in the cathedral; you will recognise them by their badge. They can help you with your visit and answer your questions. To arrange a guided tour, and for group visits, which can take place all year round by appointment, please call 07 66 39 84 11. More information on their website (in French): https://visite-cathedrale-tours.fr/
You can also visit the Psalette cloister, which is reached through the cathedral.
Visit details Video presentation
Built on the remains of the Gallo-Roman city of Caesarodunum, Saint-Gatien Cathedral stands at the heart of a city that was one of the most famous pilgrimage centres in the Western world and that remains one of the capitals of the Pays de la Loire.
A witness to a brilliant past and a long history, the cathedral of Tours is a major site for lovers of art and history, as well as for those who seek God.
Its influence spreads across a region made famous by Saint Gatian, first bishop of Tours, by Saint Lidoire, founder of the first cathedral, by Saint Martin, the apostle of Touraine and of Gaul, and by Saint Gregory, builder of the Frankish basilica. Blanche of Castile and Saint Louis contributed to its construction. Joan of Arc, kings of France and crowds of pilgrims on the road to Compostela stopped here.
The cathedral of Tours enjoyed royal protection from very early on: the kings of France were honorary canons from Louis VII onwards. Saint Francis of Paola (confessor of Louis XI), Marie of the Incarnation (mother of the Catholic Church in Canada) and Léon Papin-Dupont, the “holy man of Tours”, came here to pray. The present cathedral, which has a long history, succeeds three other churches; its construction stretched from the 13th to the 16th century.
- A first church, built by Bishop Lidoire, which saw the consecration of Saint Martin and the “miracle of the globe of fire”.
- A Frankish church that lasted 400 years, dedicated to Saint Maurice and adorned with superb mosaics in honour of Saint Martin.
- A Romanesque church that was used for a century and was destroyed by war and fire.
- This fourth church would be Gothic.
The Rayonnant Gothic of the remarkable reliquary-like east end is followed by the Flamboyant Gothic of the west front, and finally by the Renaissance style of the towers, crowned in the Italian manner: a true treatise on architecture.
Once through the royal portal, what strikes visitors is the harmony of the proportions, but also the abundant light that floods the whole building, a sign of the divine presence.
You can admire the fine arrangement of the apse, whose three levels of windows, of great chromatic unity (13th-century stained-glass), form a remarkably harmonious whole, a rare sight in a cathedral.
The choir, with its 800 m² of stained-glass, is the jewel of the cathedral and one of the finest achievements of Rayonnant Gothic, worthy of the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris.
Together with the windows of the choir, the superb rose windows of the transept and the west end and the new 21st-century stained-glass dedicated to Saint Martin have made the cathedral of Tours famous.
The high altar, made of Burgundy stone decorated with rosettes.
The ambulatory opens onto many chapels, one of which houses a masterpiece of the early French Renaissance: the tomb of the children of Charles VIII and Anne of Brittany (1506).
The recently restored Psalette cloister, from the 15th and 16th centuries, runs along the north side of the cathedral; of the five cathedrals of the Centre region, this is the only one to have kept its cloister buildings.
A sign of God at the heart of the city
The space that reveals God takes hold of you as soon as you enter the cathedral, and even more intensely if you stand in the centre of the transept, facing east.
For anyone willing to be captivated by the perfection of its lines and the symphony of colours poured out by the stained-glass, the cathedral is an
invitation to look within and, for believers, to pray.
Over the centuries, the cathedral church has borne witness to the ever-growing faith of its builders, and it has remained the
symbolic monument that attracts, as here in Tours, a growing number of visitors; it also remains the living church where
the people of God still gather.
Some key dates
- Around 338, the bishop of Tours, Litorius (Saint Lidoire), builds the “ecclesia prima” inside the city walls.
- 371: Saint Martin succeeds him.
- 558: the castrum is ravaged by fire. The cathedral lies in ruins.
- 590: Bishop Gregory of Tours rebuilds it and dedicates it to Saint Maurice.
- Around 1160, a third cathedral, in the Angevin style, is begun, with its front built on the Gallo-Roman wall. It was probably never finished.
- 1167: the building suffers serious damage in a fire that sweeps through the city.
- 1220-1270: after several fires, the cathedral is rebuilt, with the east end and the choir built in two stages, first following the French Gothic model for the lower sections, then in the Rayonnant style for the upper sections.
- Late 13th century: the architect Étienne de Mortagne rebuilds the transept in the same style.
- In the 14th century, the work moves westwards with the first two bays and the lower sections, still in the Rayonnant style, while Saint Gatian (the name of the first bishop, who had preceded Lidoire) gradually becomes the new patron saint of the cathedral.
- Around 1470, after a slowdown caused by the Hundred Years’ War, the nave is completed by Jean de Dampmartin, in the Flamboyant style for the upper sections; the front, in the same style, is finished by Jean Papin and Jean Durant.
- 1484: the portals are completed.
- Around 1507: completion of the north tower with its Renaissance crown.
- 1534-1547: completion of the south tower, in the same style as the north tower.
- 1787: the rood screen is removed.
- 1793: the statues of the portals are destroyed by the revolutionaries.
- 1848: restoration of the central portal.
- 1993: the statues along the roof are restored by the Tours architect Arnaud de Saint-Jouan. The restoration of the choir and the east end begins.
- 1996: inauguration of the restored great organ.
- 22 December 1996: the cathedral’s previous high altar is consecrated by Monsignor Jean Honoré.
- Early 2003: completion of the restoration of the upper windows of the choir and the east end.
- 2009-2010: restoration of the west front and its rose window.
- 2010-2013: restoration of the north arm of the transept and its rose window. Installation of two hundred square metres of stained-glass dedicated to Saint Martin
- 17 June 2018: consecration of the present altar by Archbishop Bernard-Nicolas Aubertin.