page_title: Montmajour Abbey
section_title: St. Peter's Chapel (11th century)
hierarchical_section_title: Montmajour Abbey / St. Peter's Chapel (11th century)
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Près d'Arles, dans le département des Bouches-du-Rhône en France, sur le site de l'abbaye de Montmajour, l'Ermitage Saint-Pierre.
context_page_description: Montmajour Abbey, formally the Abbey of St. Peter in Montmajour, was a fortified Benedictine monastery built between the 10th and 18th centuries on what was originally an island five kilometers north of Arles, in what is now the Bouches-du-Rhône Department, in the region of Provence in the south of France.
  The abbey complex consists of six sections:
  the hermitage, dating from the 11th century, which includes the Chapel of St. Peter;
  the cloister, built during the 12th and 13th centuries;
  the adjacent Chapel of the Holy Cross, built during the 12th century;
  the fortified Monastery of St. Peter, built during the 14th century;
  the Tower of Abbot Pons de l'Orme, dating from the same period;
  the Maurist monastery, built in the 17th century.
  The abbey is noted for its 11th–14th-century graves, carved in the rock, its subterranean crypt, and its massive unfinished church. It was an important pilgrimage site during the Middle Ages, and in the 18th century it was the site of a large Maurist monastery, now in ruin. The abbey and the landscape around it were frequently painted and drawn by Vincent van Gogh.
context_section_description: St. Peter's Chapel is the oldest existing part of the abbey, probably built between 1030 and 1050. It consists of a narthex and two parallel naves, the older one cut into the rock on the south side of the hill, and an arcade of rounded Romanesque arches resting on columns, creating openings to the rock cemetery.  The columns are older than the church, and probably come from Roman buildings in Arles; but the capitals of the columns are carved with Romanesque floral designs. The southern nave is complete with a choir and a semi-circular apse.
  Inside the church a passage leads to what appears to be a natural cave, with a small window, which according to tradition was the home of St. Trophimus and the first monks to live on the island.
  The chapel was severely vandalized in 1976, with restoration due by 2012.
caption: Nave of St. Peter's Chapel (11th century)
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "SONY", "Image Model": "CYBERSHOT", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2000:07:01 02:13:53", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "224", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Make": "SONY", "Thumbnail Model": "CYBERSHOT", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail DateTime": "2000:07:01 02:13:53", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "797", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "3118", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/30", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "206", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0210", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2000:07:01 02:13:53", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2000:07:01 02:13:53", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "2", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "61/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1104", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1472", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "582", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed"}