Reconsidering the Frescoes in the Church in Vieux Pouzauges (Bas-Poitou, France)

The church of Notre Dame in Vieux-Pouzauges hosts fragments of frescoes on the counter-façade and on the northern wall of the nave. Besides scenes from the Old Testament, there are also scenes illustrating the history of Mary’s parents and her childhood from the Apocryphal Gospels. The narrative cycle is surrounded by a rich array of figural and ornamental motifs. There are three friezes: one housing the cityscape of Jerusalem, a second with a meander interrupted by squares with representations of fantastical creatures and a third with personifications of the Months within a series of medallions. All the frescoes are dated to between the end of the 12th and the first quarter of the 13th century. Despite its uniqueness and the fact that the frescoes are likely the oldest representations of the Apocryphal Gospels in the territory of present-day France, the cycle has attracted little scholarly attention so far. The paper focuses on the reconstruction of the textual and visual sources of this cycle and analyses the individual scenes in order to identify their iconographical models.