Basilique Saint-Pierre

The Basilique Saint-Pierre anchors the square with a facade of elaborate Flamboyant Gothic stone carvings. Its double doors are massive walnut panels, sculpted in the mid-sixteenth century by Antoine Volard. Volard filled the wood with figures of the Virgin Mary and Saint Peter, framed by delicate, swirling vines. In seventeen ninety-one, during the French Revolution, the church became a storehouse for fodder and grain. Today, the original doors remain in place, surviving centuries of humidity and the upheaval of that time.