Church of St Bruno

Aquarelle de Bordes
Eglise de la Chartreuse. XIXe
Fi XIV-G-40 rec 125.
© Archives Municipales. Photo B. Rakotomanga.

The Church of St Bruno is the last architectural example of the prestigious monasteries of the Carthusian monks built under the episcopacy of Cardinal François d’Escoubleau de Sourdis, archbishop of Bordeaux from 1599 to 1628. It is Bordeaux's example of the renewed and triumphant Church of the Counter-Reformation.
The first Carthusians arrived in Bordeaux in 1383. They settled outside the city walls and founded a hermitage. The area became more built-up and the Carthusians decided in 1579 to move somewhere more isolated. In 1609 Cardinal Sourdis bought a large, swampy piece of land by Bordeaux's city gates (the present day Mériadeck area), on which he had the new church built (1611-1620) and laid out one of the first public walkways in France.

The sumptuous decoration of the chancel, carried out after 1650, is of considerable artistic merit and recalls some of the most beautiful religious works of Papal Rome. The great painter, Philippe de Champaigne (1606-1674), the Bernini sculptors (Pietro and Giovanni Lorenzo, known as Cavalier Bernin) created an Annunciation, Jean Girouard, and also the painter Berinzago who created the trompe-l'oeil frescoes covering the entire ceiling of the church, are just some of the great artists who participated in the decorative programme that has been much admired since the 18th century.
At the start of the 21st century, Italian specialists took on the difficult task of restoring the frescoes. The work lasted for almost two years.