La montagne d’Age depuis Nonglard

Discover the panoramic view of the village from the Nonglard cross.

A rare religious building, the Lantern of the Dead is listed as a historic monument.This curious edifice, better known as "the monument", is a cylindrical masonry tower, 1.60 m in diameter and 4 m high, topped by a dome with a wrought-iron cross bearing freemasonic signs. Its simple architecture, its shape and the curve of its dome place its construction in the first part of the 17th century, and you'll have to go as far as the Limousin to find a replica. The purpose of this monument was to honor the dead and to indicate that a period of contagion was underway, thus limiting the spread of an epidemic. A little history Lanterns for the dead were usually erected within the cemetery walls, where they were lit throughout the night. But the one in Nonglard is unusual in that it stands at a crossroads. If you look at its location on the Sardinian map, you'll see that the space between the church and the lantern, now the town square with the town hall, was privately owned. In 1730, the owner was Pierre Pottier. His grandfather, Jacques Pottier, was a surgeon in Annecy, where in 1650 he married Charlotte Leya, whose father, Jehan, a bourgeois from Annecy, owned the land at the time. It was in 1650, therefore, that the Pottier family set foot in Nonglard thanks to this marriage, having left their native Anjou to take refuge in Savoie during the war of religion. Gilbert Viviant, a member of the Florimontane Academy, who has devoted many years of research to shedding light on Nonglard's astonishing lantern, offers a plausible explanation: "At the end of 1669 and the beginning of the following year, when epidemics had once again struck the commune, causing 25 deaths, including 11 children (perhaps from smallpox), Jacques Pottier had the lantern of the dead erected at the edge of the road adjoining the entrance to his property, as existed in his father's and grandfather's home provinces. The lights placed in this lantern in the center of the village indicated that we were in a period of contagion, and were part of the means to limit the spread of an epidemic". This "local protection" monument, now lit only by daylight, has been listed as a historic monument since 1964. Restoration work was carried out in 1996 to highlight this strange monument, which serves to ward off evil spirits and attract our curiosity today.