Marseille Cathedral

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Marseille Cathedral (Cathédrale Sainte-Marie-Majeure de Marseille or Cathédrale de la Major) is a Roman Catholic cathedral, and a national monument of France, located in Marseille. It has been a basilica minor since 1896.

It is the seat of the Archdiocese of Marseille (formerly the Diocese of Marseille until its elevation in 1948).

The present cathedral, the "Nouvelle Major", was built on an enormous scale in Byzantine-Roman style from 1852 to 1896 on the site used for the cathedrals of Marseille since the 5th century, principally by the architects Léon Vaudoyer (1803-1872) and Henri-Jacques Espérendieu (1829-1874). Some modest structures remaining from the earlier cathedral, the "Vieille Major", still stand alongside, dwarfed by the huge scale of the later construction.

[edit] Sources

• Cathédrale Sainte-Marie-Majeure in the Structurae database
• Old Sainte-Marie-Majeure Cathedral in the Structurae database

[edit] External links

• Ministère de la Culture: Archive photographs of the new cathedral
• Location