Oloron Cathedral, now St. Mary's Church, is a Roman Catholic church and former cathedral located in the town of Oloron-Sainte-Marie. It is in the Romanesque and Gothic architectural traditions.
Construction was started in the 12th century by Gaston IV, Viscount of Béarn. It was the seat of the Bishopric of Oloron, suppressed by the Concordat of 1801. Restored in 1850, listed in 1939, the cathedral is inscribed in 1998 on the list of humanity UNESCO World Heritage under the Pilgrimage Routes to Santiago de Compostela.
Architecturally, the massive bell tower and the defensive Romanesque portal are testimonies of the original building (twelfth). The carved decoration of the said portal is particularly remarkable: the theme evokes Christ's cross downhill. Always at the architectural level, the Gothic sanctuary with ambulatory is another masterpiece of the site.
Inside, in terms of furniture and decorations, a pulpit of the seventeenth century, the organ and its buffet seventeenth and eighteenth, nineteenth stained glass are observed. As for the treasure, it is housed in two chapels. Are presented including silverware, representations of St. Grat, the protector of St. Mary, a crib eighteenth, a collection of vestments and reliquary busts.
References:The Villa d'Este is a 16th-century villa in Tivoli, near Rome, famous for its terraced hillside Italian Renaissance garden and especially for its profusion of fountains: the extraordinary system contains fifty-one fountains and nymphaeums, 398 spouts, 364 water jets, 64 waterfalls, and 220 basins, fed by 875 meters of canals, channels and cascades, and all working entirely by the force of gravity, without pumps. It is now an Italian state museum, and is listed as a UNESCO world heritage site.
Tivoli had been a popular summer residence since ancient Roman times due to its altitude, cooler temperatures and its proximity to the Villa Hadriana, the summer residence of the Emperor Hadrian I.
The Villa was commissioned by Cardinal Ippolito II d'Este (1509-1572), second son of Alfonso I d'Este, the Duke of Ferrara and grandson of Pope Alexander VI, along with Lucrezia Borgia.