St. Anthony's Church, Compiègne

Saint-Antoine Church is a Catholic parish church located in Compiègne, France. Like the church of Saint-Jacques, the other church in the city center, it was founded in 1199 and depended closely on the abbey of Saint-Corneille, which had the patronage of all the cures of the city. It was built during the first half of the 13th century, but the church was deeply transformed in the 16th century, probably due to the damage suffered during the Hundred Years' War, and it is now a fairly homogeneous building in the flamboyant Gothic style. The facade and the choir with its side aisles and ambulatory date entirely from the 16th century; with their rich sculpted decoration and great elegance and finesse of form, they are the most remarkable parts of the church. Inside, these parts are also the most interesting, characterized by prismatic supports and vaults with a particular design with liernes and tiercerons. The nave and its aisles, on the other hand, are rather monotonous and show little stylistic research. The church lost most of its works of art in 1768, when a priest, anxious to make the interior brighter, had it emptied of most of its contents. Classified as a historical monument by the list of 1840, the church was extensively restored from 1863. The church is affiliated with the parish of the Sixteen Blessed Carmelites of Compiègne.