Vieille Charité, Marseille, France

La Vieille Charité is a former almshouse, now functioning as a museum and cultural centre. Constructed between 1671 and 1749 in the Baroque style to the designs of the architect Pierre Puget, it comprises four ranges of arcaded galleries in three storeys surrounding a space with a central chapel surmounted by an ovoid dome.

The main body of the structure is a rectangle, 112 m by 96 m, composed of four walls in pink and yellow-tinted molasse stone from the ancient quarries at Cap Couronne, with no outward facing windows. On the inside are three arcaded galleries superposed on each other, opening onto an interior courtyard measuring 82 m by 45 m. In the centre of the courtyard is a harmonious chapel, a round church, crowned by an ellipsoidal dome and fronted by a portico in the classical style with Corinthian columns. This Baroque chapel ranks as one of Puget's most original designs.

La Vieille Charité houses a number of different cultural and educational resources like the Museum of Mediterranean Archaeology on the first floor. It covers oriental and classical antiquities, as well as local Celto-Ligurian archaeology. The Museum of Art of Africa, Oceania and Amerindia, on the second floor, contains an unusually collection of artefacts, including masks from Mexico and West Africa and a unique collection of engraved human skulls and trophy heads from South America.

References:

Wikipedia

Museums in France

User Reviews

Corinna Taylor (42 days ago)
We really loved our time here. For a free exhibit it was full of amazing artifacts and history. Highly recommend!

Caroline Findlay (6 months ago)
This really is a beautiful building. I didn’t visit any of the exhibits, as I have to admit to being a bit ‘museum fatigued’ at this point! But I thoroughly enjoyed admiring the beautiful architecture of the arcades, and the chapel with the unusual ovoid dome.

Flan Tran (6 months ago)
Nice place to visit. There is optional choice of tickets for the exhibition of "Objets Micreateurs": €9 unlimited visit and a free ticket which is - of course for limited site, but with or without payment, there is sure valuable your time. Note: do not forget to take ticket even the one is free, just ask for from the office, right on the right of the entrance.

Philippe Quentin (12 months ago)
Beautiful place to visit, you can hang out downstairs to have a bite and a coffee between different exhibitions located at every level. Note that each first Sunday of every month is museum free entry nationwide.

Navaneeth Tejasvi (2 years ago)
One of the attract in the Marseille, one can easily find and enjoy. A view of harbor, cruise ships, port, fort and what not, visit the place and experience it for your self

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Monte d"Accoddi is a Neolithic archaeological site in northern Sardinia, located in the territory of Sassari. The site consists of a massive raised stone platform thought to have been an altar. It was constructed by the Ozieri culture or earlier, with the oldest parts dated to around 4,000–3,650 BC.

The site was discovered in 1954 in a field owned by the Segni family. No chambers or entrances to the mound have been found, leading to the presumption it was an altar, a temple or a step pyramid. It may have also served an observational function, as its square plan is coordinated with the cardinal points of the compass.

The initial Ozieri structure was abandoned or destroyed around 3000 BC, with traces of fire found in the archeological evidence. Around 2800 BC the remains of the original structure were completely covered with a layered mixture of earth and stone, and large blocks of limestone were then applied to establish a second platform, truncated by a step pyramid (36 m × 29 m, about 10 m in height), accessible by means of a second ramp, 42 m long, built over the older one. This second temple resembles contemporary Mesopotamian ziggurats, and is attributed to the Abealzu-Filigosa culture.

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The site appears to have been abandoned again around 1800 BC, at the onset of the Nuragic age.

The monument was partially reconstructed during the 1980s. It is open to the public and accessible by the old route of SS131 highway, near the hamlet of Ottava. It is 14,9 km from Sassari and 45 km from Alghero. There is no public transportation to the site. The opening times vary throughout the year.

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