The collegiate church of St. Aignan dominates the upper town and earns its reputation as the finest Romanesque-Gothic building in southern Touraine. The church itself is partly Romanesque and partly Gothic, a visible record of several centuries of building. But the reason to come is the crypt, which predates the current church and houses a remarkable collection of 11th and 12th-century frescoes depicting scenes from the lives of saints and a Christ in Majesty that is among the oldest surviving examples of the form in the region.
The frescoes are not showy — they have the quiet authority of early medieval art, painted before the decorative ambitions of the Gothic period changed everything. The crypt is entered from inside the church; a guide is available on site to explain the iconography, which is helpful since the scenes are densely detailed. The whole church and crypt visit takes about an hour and is worth every minute of it.