Mende Cathedral, Gothic cathedral in Mende, France

Mende Cathedral is the only fully Gothic building in Lozère, built in tan and grey stone. Two towers rise on the left: the taller, at 84 metres, has paired arched openings and an openwork spire, while the smaller, 65 metres, is deliberately plain with a solid pyramidal spire. A long roofed range with steep gables and buttresses extends to the right, and a neo-Gothic portal with a rose window faces the square.

Pope Urban V, born Guillaume de Grimoard at Grizac in 1310, launched the Gothic rebuilding in the 1360s; work began in 1369 under master builder Pierre Morel of Majorca. His death in 1370 halted the site for some sixty years. Mathieu Merle's troops partly destroyed the cathedral in 1581, and it was rebuilt between 1598 and 1620, then completed in the 19th century with a neo-Gothic portal.

The dedication to Notre-Dame and Saint Privat links the cathedral to the city's patron, martyred on Mont Mimat. Visitors can venerate a 12th-century Black Madonna, crowned by Pope Leo XIII on 15 August 1894, and see 17th-century woodwork, an Aubusson tapestry of 1707 and the clapper of the bell Non-Pareille.

The cathedral stands in the centre of Mende, the prefecture of Lozère, and its two towers, 84 and 65 metres high, are visible from much of the town. The building is classified as a monument historique, and the 19th-century neo-Gothic portal is the main entrance. The tomb of Saint Privat and the 12th-century Black Madonna are inside.

The great bell Non-Pareille, hung in 1516, was the largest known bell of its time and could be heard more than ten miles away. It was destroyed when Mathieu Merle sacked the cathedral in 1581; only its clapper survives, kept today as a local treasure.