Notre Dame de la Garde (Est)

Their story.

Spiritual lighthouse of Marseille, Notre-Dame de la Garde, gentle and maternal, watches over her city. If the existence of a chapel on the hill dates back to the 13th century, the strategic importance of the site is affirmed from the 16th century with the construction of a fort by Franck 1. A symbol of the city, it is with the capture of the basilica, on August 25, 1944, that the liberation of Marseille was played out.

The current sanctuary, the one known as the Bonne Mère, so dear to the people of Marseilles, is the work of Henri Espérandieu, from 1853 à 1874, in collaboration with Henri Révoil for the decoration. The basilica of Romano-Byzantine style, with superb marbles and mosaics, shelters a collection of 150 ex-voto and, in the crypt, the Virgin with the bouquet of the goldsmith Chanuel. It is dominated by a colossal statue of the Virgin (9.70m and more than 9 tons) gilded with leaf, holding in her arms the child Jésus.