Photo : Benjamin Smith / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Autun
Autun was founded under the reign of Augustus, who ruled from 27 BC to AD 14, under the name Augustodunum, a word combining the emperor's title and the Celtic term dunon, fortress. It took over from Bibracte, the capital of the Aedui, which was gradually abandoned. The town was surrounded by an enclosure of about 6 kilometres covering some 200 hectares.
From this period survive the Roman theatre, which was 148 metres in diameter and could hold up to 20,000 spectators, the Temple of Janus and the Couhard pyramid. In the Middle Ages, Autun became a religious centre and a place of pilgrimage. The cathedral of Saint-Lazare, begun around 1120, keeps a tympanum of the Last Judgement sculpted in the twelfth century by Gislebertus, a major work of Burgundian Romanesque art. Away from the main routes, the town has kept a remarkable archaeological and artistic heritage, at the foot of the Morvan.
