Vence

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Coordinates: 43°43′25″N 7°06′51″E / 43.7236111111, 7.11416666667

Administration
Commune of Vence
Location

Country	France
Region	Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur
Department	Alpes-Maritimes
Arrondissement	Grasse
Canton	Vence
Intercommunality	Communauté d'agglomération de Nice-Côte d'Azur
Mayor	Pierre Marchou (2001-2008)
Statistics
Elevation	40 m–1,033 m (avg. 325 m)
Land area^¹	39.230 km²
Population^² (1999)	16,982
- Density	432/km² (1999)
Miscellaneous
INSEE/Postal code	06157/ 06140
¹ French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries.
² Population sans doubles comptes: residents of multiple communes (e.g. students and military personnel) only counted once.

Vence is a French commune set in the hills of the Alpes Maritimes département, between Nice and Antibes.

1 Miscellany
2 Famous residents
3 Ecclesiastical history
4 Education
5 Sources and external links

[edit] Miscellany

Vence is famous for being home to artists, sculptors and painters. D. H. Lawrence died in Vence, March 1930. His remains were later exhumed and taken to a ranch in New Mexico.

The town has a small chapel, up above the historique Chapelle du Saint-Marie du Rosaire (1948, completed in 1951), decorated with stained glass and other fittings by Henri Matisse.

Within the historique village, there is a chapel that has a mosaic by Chagall on an outside wall, dated 1911.

There is a section of the old Roman road still in the village, and it can be walked on.

The town has a thriving community of artists and is a better choice than the neighboring Saint Paul if a traveller wants a unique work of art, as well as a better place to windowshop than the crowded, steep walks of St Paul.

Vence is famous for its spring water, which can be collected from numerous fountains throughout the town.

Vence is twinned with the market town of Stamford, Lincolnshire.

[edit] Famous residents

Maurice Boitel (b.1919), artist
Henri Calet (1904–1956), writer
Marc Chagall, artist
Raoul Dufy, artist
Witold Gombrowicz (1904–1969), writer, died in his home here
Henri Matisse (1869-1954), artist
Jacques (artist) and Gwen Raverat (artist and writer)
James Baldwin (writer) died in the near-by St Paul de Vence

[edit] Ecclesiastical history

The first known Bishop of Vence is Severus, bishop in 439 and perhaps as early as 419.

Among others are: St. Veranus, son of St. Eucherius, Archbishop of Lyon and a monk of Lérins, bishop before 451 and at least until 465; St. Lambert, first a Benedictine monk (died 1154); Cardinal Alessandro Farnese (1505-11).

Antoine Godeau, Bishop of Grasse, was named Bishop of Vence in 1638; the Holy See wished to unite the two dioceses. Meeting with opposition from the chapter and the clergy of Vence Godeau left Grasse in 1653, to remain Bishop of Vence, which see he held until 1672.

The diocese of Nice now unites the three former Dioceses of Nice, Grasse and Vence.

[Vence Cathedral:[1],[2]]