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Riez (; Provençal: ''Riés'') is a commune in the
Alpes-de-Haute-Provence Alpes-de-Haute-Provence or sometimes abbreviated as AHP (; oc, Aups d'Auta Provença; ) is a department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region of France, bordering Alpes-Maritimes and Italy to the east, Var to the south, Vaucluse to the w ...
department in southeastern
France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
.


Geography

The densely built village sits where two small rivers join—the Auvestre and the Colostre—in a glacially widened valley.


Population


Economy

Riez is located in a district of fields of commercially grown
lavender ''Lavandula'' (common name lavender) is a genus of 47 known species of flowering plants in the mint family, Lamiaceae. It is native to the Old World and is found in Cape Verde and the Canary Islands, and from Europe across to northern and easte ...
, which support a honey-making industry.
Truffles A truffle is the fruiting body of a subterranean ascomycete fungus, predominantly one of the many species of the genus ''Tuber''. In addition to ''Tuber'', many other genera of fungi are classified as truffles including '' Geopora'', '' Pe ...
are found: there is a weekly truffle market on Wednesdays from late November through March.


History

The domed hill was the hillfort headquarters of the Reii a
Celto-Ligurian The Ligures (singular Ligur; Italian: liguri; English: Ligurians) were an ancient people after whom Liguria, a region of present-day north-western Italy, is named. Ancient Liguria corresponded more or less to the current Italian regi ...
tribe, who gave their name to the Roman community in the valley floor near it: ''Alebaece Reiorum'' it was called, then ''Alebaece Reiorum Apollinares'' from the
Roman temple Ancient Roman temples were among the most important buildings in Roman culture, and some of the richest buildings in Roman architecture, though only a few survive in any sort of complete state. Today they remain "the most obvious symbol of ...
of
Apollo Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label= ...
from which four
Corinthian columns The Corinthian order ( Greek: Κορινθιακός ρυθμός, Latin: ''Ordo Corinthius'') is the last developed of the three principal classical orders of Ancient Greek architecture and Roman architecture. The other two are the Doric ord ...
yet stand. The name evolved to ''Regium'' (until the 8th century) then ''Regina'' (until the 11th century). A bishop of Riez is known from an early date, though the first bishop is purely legendary. At the beginning of the 5th century, a certain St. Prosper of Reggio in Emilia figures in the history of Riez and was perhaps its bishop; however, the first definitely known bishop, according to the ''Catholic Encyclopedia'', was St. Maximus (433–460), who succeeded St. Honoratus as Abbot of Lérins and who, in 439, held a council at Riez with a view to effecting ecclesiastical reforms in the churches of southern
Gaul Gaul ( la, Gallia) was a region of Western Europe first described by the Romans. It was inhabited by Celtic and Aquitani tribes, encompassing present-day France, Belgium, Luxembourg, most of Switzerland, parts of Northern Italy (only during ...
. His name is commemorated in the ''Mont St-Maxime'', which is surmounted by the ''Chapelle St-Maxim'' (a nunnery). His successor, St. Faustus of Riez (c. 461 – c. 493), also formerly Abbot of Lérins, was noted for his writings against Predestinationists; it was to him that
Sidonius Apollinaris Gaius Sollius Modestus Apollinaris Sidonius, better known as Sidonius Apollinaris (5 November of an unknown year, 430 – 481/490 AD), was a poet, diplomat, and bishop. Sidonius is "the single most important surviving author from 5th-century Gaul ...
dedicated his ''Carmen Eucharisticum'', in gratitude for hospitality received at Riez. Contumeliosus of Riez was deposed for adultery in 534. At a much later date Robert Ceneau (1530–1532), the pulpit orator afterwards
Bishop of Avranches The Roman Catholic Diocese of Coutances (–Avranches) ( Latin: ''Dioecesis Constantiensis (–Abrincensis)''; French: ''Diocèse de Coutances (–Avranches)'') is a diocese of the Roman Catholic Church in France. Its mother church is the Ca ...
, and Gui Bentivoglio (1622–1625), the papal nuncio in France and a defender of French interests at Rome, who played an important role under
Louis XIII Louis XIII (; sometimes called the Just; 27 September 1601 – 14 May 1643) was King of France from 1610 until his death in 1643 and King of Navarre (as Louis II) from 1610 to 1620, when the crown of Navarre was merged with the French crow ...
, are also mentioned among the bishops of Riez. The diocese was suppressed on 29 November 1801, and its territory included in the diocese of Dignebr>
The 5th-century free-standing
baptistery In Christian architecture the baptistery or baptistry (Old French ''baptisterie''; Latin ''baptisterium''; Greek , 'bathing-place, baptistery', from , baptízein, 'to baptize') is the separate centrally planned structure surrounding the baptism ...
(its small dome rebuilt in the 12th century) is one of only a few surviving from
Christian Gaul Gaul was an important early center of Latin Christianity in late antiquity and the Merovingian period. By the middle of the 3rd century, there were several churches organized in Roman Gaul, and soon after the cessation of persecution the bishop ...
; it was built about 100 meters from the healing waters that had been sacred to Aesculapius, son of Apollo, to whom a dedicatory inscription was found in the 17th century. In the Christianized landscape Riez retained its reputation for healing waters into the 19th centur

The former
cathedral A cathedral is a church that contains the ''cathedra'' () of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually specific to those Christian denominations ...
, located on the axis of the baptistery, was constructed on top of a much larger Roman public building from the 1st–2nd century; it was destroyed at the end of the 15th century. Excavations have revealed a 5th-century structure in the field across the road east of the baptistery. The present small cathedral is dedicated to Nôtre-Dame-de-l'Assomption. In the Middle Ages, the new structures of the town were gradually built away from the junction adjacent to the rivers to slightly higher ground because of a rising river. Alluvial silt deposited in the beds of the small rivers—a familiar result of
deforestation Deforestation or forest clearance is the removal of a forest or stand of trees from land that is then converted to non-forest use. Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. The most concentrated ...
in the rivers' upper watersheds—had raised the beds of the rivers and extended the floodplain. Deep alluvium still covers much of the Roman site of ''Reii Appolinares''.


Sites

Today the baptistery contains a small archaeological museum of altars and funerary
stele A stele ( ),Anglicized plural steles ( ); Greek plural stelai ( ), from Greek language, Greek , ''stēlē''. The Greek plural is written , ''stēlai'', but this is only rarely encountered in English. or occasionally stela (plural ''stelas'' or ...
s and a collection of Roman inscriptions, which include an inscribed ''
taurobolium In the Roman Empire of the second to fourth centuries, ''taurobolium'' referred to practices involving the sacrifice of a bull, which after mid-second century became connected with the worship of the Great Mother of the Gods; though not previo ...
'' altar.It was noted ''in situ'' across from the cathedral, by Aubin Louis Millin, ''Voyage dans Les Départemens du Midi de la France'', vol. iii:49. There is a cylindrical milestone from the Aurelian Way. In the '' Hôtel de ville'' is the Natural History Museum of Provence.


See also

*
Communes of the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence department The following is a list of the 198 communes of the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence department of France. The communes cooperate in the following intercommunalities (as of 2020):List of works by Louis Botinelly This is a listing of the major works of Louis Botinelly, a French sculptor born in Digne on 2 January 1883 and died in Marseille on 26 March 1962. His father was a mason, originally from Tessin in Switzerland, who had a workshop in Digne before the ...


References


''Catholic Encyclopedia'':
"Digne"
Richard Stillwell, ed. ''Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites'', 1976:
"Alebaece Reiorum Apollinarium (Riez) Alpes de Haute-Provence, France"


External links


Town's website
{{authority control Communes of Alpes-de-Haute-Provence Alpes-de-Haute-Provence communes articles needing translation from French Wikipedia