THE JACOBINS

Agen is home to many buildings with fascinating histories. The Jacobins church, now desacralized, is one of them. It is the only vestige of the former Dominican convent built in 1249. The Wars of Religion in the ^16th century did not spare it. Reduced to ruins by a powder magazine explosion in 1585, it was sold during the French Revolution. The church remained. Made of brick, it takes the form of a rectangular vessel rather than a cross, as required by the Dominican monastic order, which advocated a certain austerity in both religious practice and architecture. The church is a departure from the rule, and not the least! Look up into the nave and you'll see the impressive vaults supported by massive columns. This type of architecture was outlawed by the Dominican order led by Humbert de Romans until his death in 1263. The vaults were built in 1265, which explains why! After having been used as a stable, a prison and a meeting room for drafting the cahiers de doléances of the French Revolution, it has been used since 1990 by the Musée des Beaux-Arts for temporary exhibitions. These have included "Goya, avant-garde genius" in 2019, "Inventing color" in 2021 as a tribute to Louis Ducos du Hauron, one of the fathers of color photography, and the "Forest Art Project" to raise environmental awareness through art. The site will remain closed for renovation until the end of 2025.