In the 14th cen­tu­ry, this city in the South of France was the seat of the papa­cy. The Palais des Papes, an aus­tere-look­ing fortress lav­ish­ly dec­o­rat­ed by Simone Mar­ti­ni and Mat­teo Gio­vanet­ti, dom­i­nates the city, the sur­round­ing ram­parts and the remains of a 12th-cen­­tu­ry bridge over the Rhone. Beneath this out­stand­ing exam­ple of Goth­ic archi­tec­ture, the Petit Palais and the Romanesque Cathe­dral of Notre-Dame-des-Doms com­plete an excep­tion­al group of mon­u­ments that tes­ti­fy to the lead­ing role played by Avi­gnon in 14th-cen­­tu­ry Chris­t­ian Europe.