28.9.2024, Aix-en-Provence: Merovingian baptistery and Cézanne’s Mt. Sainte-Victoire

Aix-en-Provence, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aix-en-Provence: … Aquae Sextiae … founded in 123 BC … In 102 BC its vicinity was the scene of the Battle of Aquae Sextiae, where the Romans under Gaius Marius defeated the Ambrones and Teutones … during the Middle Ages … the capital of Provence …

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Cathédrale Saint Sauveur, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aix_Cathedral: … built on the site of the 1st-century Roman forum of Aix … includes Romanesque, Gothic and Neo-Gothic elements, as well as Roman columns and parts of the baptistery from a 6th-century Christian church … Only the octagonal baptismal pool and the lower part of the walls remain from that period. The other walls and the dome were rebuilt in the Renaissance … The columns are probably from a Roman temple that stood on the same site …

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Mont Sainte-Victoire, https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montagne_Sainte-Victoire: … ein Kalksteingebirge im Süden der Provence, das sich von nahe Aix en Provence über 18 Kilometer nach Osten erstreckt … höchste Erhebung … mit 1.011 Metern der … Pic des Mouches. Das Gebirge wurde bekannt durch … Paul Cézanne, der es von seinem nah gelegenen … im Norden von Aix-en-Provence sehen konnte und es siebenundachtzig Mal malte …

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Bill Morgan (2015): The Beats abroad. City Lights Publishers, San Francisco, p.41: „In April 1957 Jack Kerouac … visited the Cathédrale Saint Sauveur [34, Place des Martyrs-de-la-Résistance] … The sixth-century Merovingian baptistery that he describes is still there … In 1961, Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky visited Aix-en-Provence in order to absorb the beautiful view of Mont Sainte-Victoire, which figures prominently in the work of Paul Cézanne … Kenneth Rexroth … who was an early … friend oft he Beat writers … married … Marthe Larsen in Aix-en-Provence in 1949. The newlyweds drank grog in the Deux Garcons [53, cours Mirabeau] …“