Annecy Cathedral

Sober 16th-century cathedral where Francis de Sales preached for two decades

Annecy's cathedral is the church of Saint-Pierre, an early-sixteenth-century Franciscan building converted to cathedral use in the nineteenth century. The exterior is sober, almost austere — a single high gable, a modest doorway, no flanking towers — quite unlike the more flamboyant Savoyard parish churches.

The interior is more rewarding: a soaring single nave with rib vaults, a fine seventeenth-century organ that is still played for Sunday services, and several side chapels with paintings and sculptures connected with Saint Francis de Sales. Open daily for visits outside service times; free.

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Built in 1535 as a Franciscan church, it became the cathedral of Annecy only in 1822. Saint Francis de Sales — Bishop of Geneva from 1602 and one of the most influential figures in the Counter-Reformation — preached here regularly; he is buried in the Basilique de la Visitation on the hill above.

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