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The ‘Quiqueran’ Hospital

Why is this place so important ?

The ‘Quiqueran’ Hospital attests to the finesse of the ordered and sober style of the classical Renaissance, which was in vogue at the time. Housing the poor and the sick, it was a very important building in the Cité des Baux. 

Quiqueran area

The hospital was built in the sixteenth century during the Wars of Religion, on the wishes of Jeanne de Quiqueran, the wife of Honoré des Martins, governor of Les Baux de Provence. Later renamed the ‘Hôtel Dieu et Charité des Baux’, it did not close until 1787. The ‘charitable institution’ operated thanks to contributions made by individuals, and which their descendants continued to make from one generation to the next. Some of them were in the form of money, but most of them were donations in kind, in the form of wheat, wine, or oil.

The hospital was composed on the ground floor of a portico comprised of three large arcades and, on the first floor, of a gallery ornamented with colonnettes supporting the roof. The entrance was on the other side, to the north, on a road that was once lined with houses. The facade was devoid of decoration and very austere.

In detail

On the northern façade of the ‘Quiqueran’ Hospital, an arched opening provided access to the garden of medicinal plants. The plants grown in the garden were used to treat the patients.

Did you know?

In the second half of the eighteenth century, the Quiqueran ‘charitable institution’ still contained six poor people, six patients, and a maid who lived on the premises. After the Revolution, owing to a lack of means, it was transferred to the Hôpital de Maussane, where its archives can still be found.