Saint-Dié-des-Vosges
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
|
Commune of Saint-Dié-des-Vosges |
|
| Location | |
  |
|
| Administration | |
|---|---|
| Country | France |
| Region | Lorraine |
| Department | Vosges |
| Arrondissement | Saint-Dié-des-Vosges |
| Canton | Chief town of 2 cantons |
| Mayor | Christian Pierret |
| Statistics | |
| Elevation | 310 m–901 m (avg. 343 m) |
| Land area¹ | 46.15 km² |
| Population² (1999) |
22 569 |
| - Density | 489/km² (1999) |
| Miscellaneous | |
| INSEE/Postal code | 88413/ 88100 |
| 1 French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries. | |
| 2 Population sans doubles comptes: residents of multiple communes (e.g. students and military personnel) only counted once. | |
 |
|
Saint-Dié-des-Vosges, commonly referred to as Saint-Dié, is a commune of northeastern France.
It is located in the Vosges département, of which it is a sous-préfecture.
Contents |
[edit] Geography
Saint-Dié is located 61 km northeast of Épinal by rail. It is situated on the Meurthe river in a basin surrounded by well-wooded hills.
[edit] Features
The town, part of which was laid out in a uniform style after the fire of 1757, is built largely of red sandstone. Its cathedral has a Romanesque nave (12th century) and a Gothic choir; the portal of red stone dates from the 18th century. A fine cloister (13th century), containing a stone pulpit, communicates with the Petite-Eglise or Notre-Dame, a well-preserved specimen of Romanesque architecture (12th century).
The hôtel-de-ville contains a theatre, a library with some valuable manuscripts, and a museum of antiquities. There is a monument by Merci to Jules Ferry, born in the town in 1832.
The radical plan created by Le Corbusier in 1945 to create a large plaza with factories and other buildings in the heart of the city was rejected, and only one factory of the plan was ever built.
[edit] Economy
The town benefited from the immigration of Alsatians after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871, and its industries include the spinning and weaving of cotton, bleaching, wire-drawing, metal-founding, and the manufacture of hosiery, woodwork of various kinds, machinery, iron goods and wire-gauze.
[edit] History
Saint-Dié (Deodatum, Theodata, S. Deodati Fanum) is named after a saint, Deodatus of Nevers, who grew up around a monastery founded in the 7th century. Deodatus had given up his episcopal functions to retire to this place. Some sources connect the name, however, with an earlier saint, Deodatus of Blois (d. 525).[1]
In the 10th century the community became a chapter of canons; among those who subsequently held the rank of provost or dean were Giovanni de Medici, afterwards Pope Leo X, and several princes of the ducal House of Lorraine. Among the extensive privileges enjoyed by them was that of coining money.
Though they co-operated in building the town walls, the canons and the dukes of Lorraine soon became rivals for the authority over Saint-Dié. Towards the end of the 15th century one of the earliest printing presses of Lorraine was founded at Saint-Dié. The institution of a town council in 1628, and the establishment in 1777 of a bishopric which appropriated part of their spiritual jurisdiction, contributed greatly to diminish the influence of the canons; and with the French Revolution they were completely swept away.
During the wars of the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries the town was repeatedly sacked. It was also partially destroyed by fire in 1065, 1155, 1554 and 1757. Funds for the rebuilding of the portion of the town destroyed by the last fire were supplied by Stanislas, last duke of Lorraine.
[edit] Ecclesiastical history
The diocese of Saint-Dié was erected in 1777, but suppressed by the Concordat of 1801. It was restored in 1822 as a suffragan of the Diocese of Besançon covering the department of the Vosges, of which 18 parishes were transferred to the Diocese of Strasbourg in 1871.
The diocese of Saint-Dié originated in the celebrated abbey, initially called "Galilée", established by Saint Deodatus (Dié) (7th century), around which the town of Saint-Dié grew up. The Benedictines of the original foundation were replaced in 996 by Augustinian Canons.
During the sixteenth century, and the long vacancy of the see of Toul, the abbots of the several monasteries in the Vosges, without actually declaring themselves independent of the diocese of Toul, claimed to exercise a quasi-episcopal jurisdiction. In 1718 the Bishop of Toul requested the creation of a see at Saint-Dié, but the suggestion was opposed by the King of France. The see was eventually created by Pope Pius VI in 1777 by the elevation of the abbey of Saint-Dié into a bishopric. The new diocese was removed from the diocese of Toul and was instead a suffragan of the Diocese of Trier.
[edit] Cosmography
Vautrin Lud, Canon of St-Dié and chaplain and secretary of René II, Duke of Lorraine, set up a printing-establishment at St-Dié in which two geographers, the German Martin Waldseemüller, and the Alsatian Matthias Ringmann, began at once to produce an edition of a Latin translation of Ptolemy's "Geography". In 1507 René II received from Lisbon the abridged account in French of the four voyages of Amerigo Vespucci. Lud had this translated into Latin by Basin de Sandaucourt. The printing of the translation dedicated to Emperor Maximilian was completed at St-Dié on 24 April, 1507; it was prefaced by a short explanatory booklet, entitled Cosmographiae Introductio, certainly the work of Waldseemüller, an introduction to cosmography that can be seen as the baptismal certificate of the New Continent. Indeed Waldseemüller and the scholars of the Vosgean Gymnasium then made a capital decision writing : "...And since Europe and Asia received names of women, I do not see any reason not to call this latest discovery Amerige, or America, according to the sagacious man who discovered it".
A second edition appeared at St-Dié in August 1507, a third at Strasburg in 1509, and thus the name of America was spread about. Thus Saint-Dié-des-Vosges is honored today with the title of "godmother of America", the city that named America. The work was re-edited with an English version by Charles Herbermann (New York, 1907). M Gallois proved that in 1507 Waldseemüller inserted this name in two maps, but that in 1513, in other maps Waldseemüller, being better informed, inserted the name of Columbus as the discoverer of America. But it was too late; the name of America had been already firmly established.
In 1507, Martin Waldseemüller produced in St Dié also a world globe bearing the first use of the name "America".
[edit] Born in Saint-Dié-des-Vosges
- Vautrin Lud (1448-1527), canon and creator of the Vosgean Gymnasium
- Jacques Augustin (1759-1832), miniaturist painter
- Jules Ferry (1832-1893), lawyer and politician
- Ferdinand Brunot (1860-1938), academic (linguistics)
- Fernand Baldensperger (1871-1958), academic (literature)
- Yvan Goll (1891-1950), poet and novelist
- Jacques Brenner (1922-2001), writer and critic
[edit] Higher education
University Institute of Technology : IUT (Institut universitaire de technologie)
[edit] Twin cities
- Arlon (Belgium)
- Cattolica (Italy)
- Crikvenica (Croatia)
- Friedrichshafen (Germany)
- Lowell (United States)
- Meckhe (Senegal)
- Ville de Lorraine (Canada)
- Zakopane (Poland)
[edit] External links
[edit] Sources and references
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
- This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.
