Saint-Germain-des-Prés (abbey)
The Church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés is a Roman Catholic parish church located in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés quarter of Paris. It was originally the church of a Benedictine abbey founded in 558 by Childebert I, the son of Clovis, King of the Franks. It was destroyed by the Vikings, rebuilt, and renamed in the 8th century for Saint Germain, a 6th century bishop. It was rebuilt with elements in the new Gothic style in the 11th century, and was given the first flying buttresses in the 12th century. It is considered the oldest existing church in Paris.
Saint-Germain-des-Prés (abbey)
Childebert I, the founder (Louvre)
The Abbey in 1530 (bottom left)
The church and Abbey in 1618
Saint-Germain-des-Prés is one of the four administrative quarters of the 6th arrondissement of Paris, France, located around the church of the former Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Its official borders are the River Seine on the north, the rue des Saints-Pères on the west, between the rue de Seine and rue Mazarine on the east, and the rue du Four on the south. Residents of the quarter are known as Germanopratins.
Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés
The palace and gardens of Queen Margaret of Valois (1615 engraving)
The Abbey of Saint‑Germain‑des‑Prés c. 1687
Treaty of Paris, by Benjamin West (1783), portrays the American delegates posing at the 1783 Treaty of Paris meetings. The British delegates refused to pose. The painting is in the Winterthur Museum.