Saint-Benigne de Dijon. Fifty years of research on the abbey church in the year 1000

The great church built for Saint-Benigne de Dijon in the early eleventh century by Guillaume de Volpiano has long been famous for several reasons, among which are the historic importance of its founder, who was one of the great reformers of his time; the abundance of contemporary narrative sources concerning its construction; the exceptional character of its architecture; and the presence of one of the first series of figural Romanesque capitals. Little remains of the abbey church from the year 1000. The nave and transept were rebuilt in the thirteenth century and the vast rotunda at the east end was partially destroyed at the Revolution. Knowledge of the monument was renewed by the publication of Wilhelm Schlink's thesis in 1978 and by excavations conducted by Carolyn Marino Malone at the same time. Malone, however, only published her synthetic studies of the edifice in 2008 and 2009. The time has come to go beyond strictly documentary assessments, to evaluate the place of Saint-Benigne in the art of its time in light of recent publications on the beginnings of Romanesque art, and to open up new research horizons.