Brittany's Breton heart — faience pottery, a Gothic cathedral, and Cornouaille folk tradition
Quimper (pronounced 'KAM-pair') is the historic capital of Cornouaille, the most traditionally Breton part of Brittany — a city of half-timbered medieval houses, a magnificent Gothic cathedral with asymmetric twin spires, and a living tradition of Breton culture that has been fiercely maintained. The city gives its name to the world-famous Quimper faience — hand-painted tin-glazed earthenware featuring stylised Breton peasant figures, birds, and flowers that has been produced here since 1690. The streets around the cathedral are among the best-preserved medieval streetscapes in western France.
Quimper was the capital of the semi-independent County of Cornouaille throughout the medieval period, when Brittany maintained its own language, laws, and culture separate from France. The cathedral of Saint-Corentin, begun in 1239 and completed only in the 19th century (when the neo-Gothic spires were added), stands on the site of the original 5th-century chapel of Bishop Corentin, Brittany's first bishop. The faience tradition began in 1690 when Jean-Baptiste Bousquet established the first pottery workshop here, and the HB-Henriot factory still operates.