Church of St. Peter: Free entry

At the end of the 17th century, the canon Ducloz, whose coat of arms appears on the wall of the current presbytery, had the church rebuilt, conserving its Romanesque elements such as the bell tower. Inside, the 15th-century gisant rubs shoulders with the Baroque décor.

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Descriptif

Even before you step inside, you are met with Baroque décor. Your gaze is drawn to above the smooth, sober columns of the doorway, to an entablature with a frieze and a very prominent cornice support a curvy interrupted pediment. In the centre is a statue of St. Peter, patron saint of the parish, looking over you from his niche decorated with scrollwork.
As soon as your eyes adjust to the dim light, you will see the lord of the manor of Val d'Isère waiting for you, or in any event his alabaster gisant in its recess, a niche in the wall located on the left-hand side of the church.
The entrance to the chancel and its apse are decorated by the rood beem and the main altarpiece, sculpted in around 1686 by Maurienne native Etienne Fodéré. The altarpiece, a triumphal arch and veritable gateway to Heaven, is well-balanced and harmoniously gilded. The four twisted columns of the main section delineate three panels and surround a painting of the Ascension realised by Bastiani in 1683.
On the entablature with its symmetrical recesses, three statues on each side punctuate the second level. The theological programme of this façade focuses particularly on the intellectual bases for faith: Scripture (Evangelists, St. Peter and St. Paul) and Tradition (the Fathers of the Latin Church). You can however make out some delicate statuettes of local saints on the huge and completely gilded tabernacle, which would have hidden part of the main painting if the latter had not been painted accordingly!