a village out of time…

The history of the village is linked to Saint Anthony the Egyptian whose relics, brought back to the time of the Crusades, would have had the virtue of curing the “Evil of the Burning”. The sick thus mingle with the pilgrims and this immense crowd is at the origin of the multiplication of places of reception such as hospitals and inns.

The Hospitaller Order of Saint-Antoine settled in 1297 and made this town an important place of pilgrimage where monarchs and powerful people from all over Europe flocked. The abbey is transformed and set up as the mother house of the Order.

Hospital for the Dismembered, cloister, large stables, gardens, abbey house, building for foreigners, gatehouse, reliquary treasures... Over the centuries, all of life at Saint-Antoine was organized around this Order which radiated throughout Europe and numbered more of 370 commanderies, quest houses and priories at its peak until the XNUMXth century.

Panorama of the abbey church and the medieval village of Saint-Antoine-l'Abbaye

… The only one in the department of Isère to be classified as “Most beautiful villages in France”

The destruction linked to the wars of religion, the gradual disappearance of the evil of the burning, then the French Revolution sounded the death knell for the Antonins. Despite everything, the village still retains today many architectural testimonies of this prestigious past, which has earned it the status of being classified among "the most beautiful villages in France" since 2009 with an abbey classified as a Historic Monument in 1840.

  • abbey church in the medieval village of Saint-Antoine-l'Abbaye
  • Panorama of the abbey church and the medieval village of Saint-Antoine-l'Abbaye
  • Large courtyard in the medieval village of Saint-Antoine-l'Abbaye
  • Panorama of the abbey church and the medieval village of Saint-Antoine-l'Abbaye

The abbey church, a jewel of Gothic architecture

With its flamboyant Gothic facade of gigantic proportions, its 17 interior chapels and its reliquary treasures, the abbey church says it all about the power of the Order. Inside, wall paintings, walnut stalls, a monumental high altar housing the shrine of Saint Anthony the Egyptian and an organ from the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries are on display for pilgrims and visitors.

The Trésor des Antonins is kept in 3 chapels accessible only with a guide from the Tourist Office. Looted during the Wars of Religion in the 2th century, the Antonins rebuilt it in the XNUMXth century with relics of holy martyrs and precious objects. Considered the XNUMXnd reliquary in France after the Saint-Sernin basilica in Toulouse, it bears witness to the wealth and history of the Antonins through exceptional paintings and furniture.