Chapel Notre-Dame des Pénitents
The Chapel of Our Lady of the Pénitents, is a thirteenth century church built on a small rocky spur on the edge of the village and fortified castle of Ginasservis in the Var. It has a bell tower comb with two arches, garnished with a bronze bell (eighteenth c) It has a sober and elegant stone facade, and stands on the edge of the cemetery in a landscape of plowing, breeding, forestry and hunting.
About this building
The chapel of Notre-Dame des Pénitents, also called Our Lady of the Annunciation, was built in the thirteenth century, replacing an older church, on a small rocky spur on the edge of the village and fortified castle of Ginasservis in the Var.
With its two-arched bell-tower, lined with a bronze bell (listed 18th century) and its sober and elegant cut stone facade, it stands watch on the edge of the cemetery in a landscape of plowing, breeding, forestry and hunting.
It is a Romanesque chapel, of three bays punctuated by powerful doubleaux resting on Roman capitals, and prolonged by a semicircular apse choir. A staircase, inside the church, allows visitors to climb into the nave. There are frescoes around the choir and large foothills north and south of the west gable.
From the fifteenth century to the eighteenth, two chapels were added that open onto the nave by large arches. The Church then served as a cemetery chapel before being abandoned, vandalized and looted. Classified in 1927, it is being restored.
