Collégiale Saint-Frambourg de Senlis, Royal Gothic church in Senlis, France.
The Saint-Frambourg collegiate church is a Gothic building with a single nave 46 meters long and 9.70 meters wide inside, lit by tall pointed-arch windows with stone mullions. Its pointed ribbed vaulting springs from clustered columns along both sides, and the apse holds three tall stained-glass windows glowing deep blue. A dark sculpted group sits on a base below them, and wooden benches face the apse across a central aisle.
Queen Adelaide founded Saint-Frambourg as a royal chapel after Hugh Capet's election in Senlis in 987, endowing a chapter of twelve canons. The pre-Romanesque church was replaced from 1169 by the present Gothic building, whose choir and first two nave bays were finished around 1200. The nave and bell tower base followed between 1205 and 1230, and the tower was completed at the end of the 13th century.
Since 1977 the former chapel has served as the Franz Liszt auditorium, bought by pianist György Cziffra in 1974 on André Malraux's advice. Eight stained-glass windows were made in 1977 by Joan Miró with glassmaker Charles Marcq. The Cziffra Foundation, owner since 2016, runs concerts, festivals and the annual Cziffra Prize for pianists aged 15 to 25.
The building is typically open for concerts, exhibitions, and special events held on designated weekends and days. Check the current schedule before visiting to ensure you can see the interior during your time in Senlis.
During the brief excavations after 1974, the remains of the two earlier churches were uncovered, along with tower no. 9 of the Gallo-Roman town wall, which had been levelled to build the Gothic collegiate church. The site therefore holds three successive buildings in one spot.
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