MARTRES-TOLOSANE
Haute-Garonne, France.
1. At Chiragan on the left bank of the Garonne, 19th
c. excavations brought to light a large and sumptuous
Gallo-Roman villa, which contained an exceptional
series of imperial busts and genre sculptures, for the
most part inspired by Classical Greek or Hellenistic art.
These sculptures are now kept in the Musée Saint-Raymond at Toulouse. The most likely hypothesis is that they
constituted a private collection assembled in the 3d c. by
a rich connoisseur.
2. In the center of the village of Martres, there existed
in the 4th c. another Roman villa, which was ruined
around the end of the century or a little later. In its
place was built the original Church of Sancta Maria de
Martyribus, around which grew an Early Christian necropolis. This has produced several adorned sarcophagi of the School of Aquitaine.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. L. Joulin,
Les établissements gallo-romains de la plaine de Martres-Tolosanes. Mém. presentés par divers savants à l'Académie des Inscriptions
et Belles-Lettres, 1st ser., XI.2 (1901)
IP (a fundamental
work, but dated in regard to sculptures and esp. the imperial busts, the study of which has been revived by F.
Braemer); G. Astre, “Sur l'origine des sculptures gallo-romaines de la villa de Chiragan, à Martres-Tolosane,”
Annales du Midi 45 (1933) 307-9; A. Grenier,
Manuel
. . . II.2 (1934) 832-37, 850-58, & figs. 304-5, 313-16; for
some recent discoveries, see M. Labrousse in
Gallia 17
(1959) 422.
2. J. Boube, “La nécropole paléo-chrétienne de Martres-Tolosane (Haute-Garonne),”
Pallas 3 (1955) 89-115; id.,
Cahiers archéologiques 9 (1957) 33-72; for report on recent discoveries, see M. Labrousse in
Gallia 26
(1968) 526-27.
M. LABROUSSE
