BASILICA - BOOK MUSEUM

In Marçay, before the woods, as you walk up a tree-lined driveway, you come across a surprising building. Located on the via Turonensis, which links Saint-Martin-de-Tours to Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle, it is a real eye-catcher. The basilica at Marçay is a work of struggle. That of a parish priest, Abbé Jouanneau, who moved mountains to be able to celebrate the memory and worship of Saint Benoît-Joseph Labre. A private church, it was built in the neo-Gothic style between 1884 and 1899 by Alcide Boutaud, who also designed Huysmans' house in Ligugé. Desecrated and sold in the 1970s, it was saved from ruin and listed as a Monument Historique in 2012 thanks to the intervention of its new owner, Parisian bookseller Jean-Denis Touzeau. Now fully restored, it boasts interesting architectural perspectives, beautifully crafted stained glass windows and sculpted capitals with a variety of plant motifs. With the aim of associating this astonishing monument with a museum of books, the fascinating owner presents under glass (and with many explanations) collections of documents from the ^14th, ^15th and 16th^centuries , in order to place the basilica in its era and its local historical context, without neglecting its cultural and intellectual interests. Catholic writers of the time are quoted, with Huysmans in the lead. The cloister gallery is open to the public and serves as a bookshop, as well as leading to the Chapel of St. Joseph, where visitors can meditate.