Couvent des Minimes de Grenoble, 17th century convent in Grenoble, France.
The Couvent des Minimes is a former Minim friars' monastery on Rue du Vieux-Temple in Grenoble. Its tall, flat-faced main building of pale yellow-orange plaster has four storeys of rectangular windows with white surrounds and a dark double door under a stone portal topped with a triangular pediment. A lower wing on the right, also yellow, has a stone lower section and a stone cross above a recessed round-headed niche.
The Minims obtained reluctant permission from Bishop Pierre Scarron in November 1643, but he withdrew it in 1645 while work was underway. Letters patent from the seven-year-old Louis XIV in January 1646 allowed construction to finish. Suppressed in 1790, the monastery was sold as national property and taken over by blacksmiths and carpenters; the city bought it on 10 August 1803.
The former chapel now serves as a concert hall, notably as the base of the orchestral group Les Musiciens du Louvre. The Minim friars had agreed from 1646 that a Trinitarian confraternity of the Redemption of Captives meet in this chapel; in February 1767 Bishop Jean de Caulet let the confraternity hold processions through the city streets.
The site is located on Rue du Vieux-Temple and is easily accessible from the city center. Visitors should note that the building primarily hosts events and youth programs, so checking opening hours in advance is recommended.
On 6 September 1785 the friars sheltered 48 slaves who had arrived in Grenoble, buying straw mattresses and blankets for their two-day stay. The city remembered the visit as a notable event, and it shows the link between the convent and the Trinitarian confraternity housed in its chapel.
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