Exterior view

There are centrally planned buildings from the fifth and sixth centuries in the south of France. The centrally planned building was rediscovered in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, along with a renewed appreciation of the beauty of classical Roman form. Thus the chapels built in Venasque, Rieux-Minervois, and Monmajour are centrally planned.

The chapel of Rieux-Minervois has a very individual character. Its heptagonal centre consists of four cruciform piers alternating with three columns and is surrounded by a fourteen-sided ambulatory decorated with blind arches set on colonettes, and spanned by a qurter-circle barrel. The central space is crowned by a dome. There are high quality capitals by the Master of Cabestany.

View the ground plan of the church.