The Cathedral Notre Dame de la Nativité, built in the 4th century took its final shape in the 12th century. The Tower Saint Lambert, vestige of the Bishop's Palace of France dates from the same period.
Inside, the size of the building can be surprising, but one is very quickly charmed by all the marvels which it contains: a fragment of a sarcophagus with low Gallo-Roman reliefs, pieces of Carolingian sculptures and a set of polychromatic wooden statues representing the Way of the Cross dating from the 17th and 18th centuries, the jewel of the Vençois religious heritage.
This sacred place shelters a baptistery decorated by Marc Chagall's mosaic representing Moses saved from the waters. Chagall who lived in Vence from 1950 to 1966 wanted to express the joy of baptism by this theme.
References:The Church of St Donatus name refers to Donatus of Zadar, who began construction on this church in the 9th century and ended it on the northeastern part of the Roman forum. It is the largest Pre-Romanesque building in Croatia.
The beginning of the building of the church was placed to the second half of the 8th century, and it is supposed to have been completed in the 9th century. The Zadar bishop and diplomat Donat (8th and 9th centuries) is credited with the building of the church. He led the representations of the Dalmatian cities to Constantinople and Charles the Great, which is why this church bears slight resemblance to Charlemagne's court chapels, especially the one in Aachen, and also to the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna. It belongs to the Pre-Romanesque architectural period.
The circular church, formerly domed, is 27 m high and is characterised by simplicity and technical primitivism.