The hill of inspiration — Romanesque masterpiece and Camino gateway
Vézelay is a Burgundian hilltop village of just 400 people crowned by the Basilique Sainte-Madeleine, one of the supreme masterpieces of Romanesque architecture in the world. The nave capitals are among the finest Romanesque sculptures in existence, and the tympanum of the narthex — Christ sending out the Apostles at Pentecost — is the greatest Romanesque carved portal surviving. From here St Bernard preached the Second Crusade in 1146, Richard the Lionheart and Philip Augustus met to depart for the Third, and Thomas Becket issued his excommunication of Henry II's advisors. It is also one of…
The Basilica of Vézelay was founded in 878 CE and grew to enormous importance after the monks claimed to possess the relics of Mary Magdalene in 1050 — a claim that brought such floods of pilgrims that the nave had to be entirely rebuilt (1120–1150 CE) in the Cluniac-Burgundian Romanesque style we see today. The abbey fell into decline after 1279, when a competing relic claim was made by Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume, and was almost entirely destroyed during the Revolution before Viollet-le-Duc began its restoration in 1840 — his first major commission. UNESCO listed Vézelay in 1979.