Many thanks to a friend, Mr Thomas Neal, for sharing with us his pictures of this 12th century Romanesque church in the town of Saint-Saturnin, in the south-central region of Puy-de-Dôme. The church is dedicated to both Our Lady and St Saturninus, who was martyred at Toulouse in the 3rd century, and gave his name to the town. (He has the distinction of being the very first Saint in the Roman sanctoral cycle as it is currently arranged, since his feast day is on November 29th.) It is last and smallest of five churches in the region all built on a similar plan, with a large elevation across the transept, out of which rises a polygonal tower. The others are the basilica of Notre-Dame-du-Port in Clermont-Ferrand, Notre-Dame at Orcival, the church of St Austremonius in Issoire, and of St Nectarius in the town named for him. All five also am apsidal choir sticking out of the back in a rather blocky fashion, with extra apses to serve as side-chapels extruded from them, a feature which anticipates one of the major developments of the Gothic in France.
