The chapels of the Penitents

Bearing witness to the strong religious feelings which were present in the community of Saorge, three chapels of the Penitents, today classified as historical monuments, were built at the start of the 17th century.The confraternities of the Penitents were spread throughout Occitania from the 13th century onwards, made up of men and women “of good life and morals”, with the “reputation of being genuinely religious”.The chapel of the Red Penitents, devoted to Saint Sébastien, was abandoned in 1950 and turned into a warehouse and electrical transformer.The chapel of the white penitents has Saint James the Great as its patron; it pretty bell tower with varnished tiles gleams in the sunlight and contrasts with the building’s state of disrepair.