GALLIA ROMANA

Database of texts and images
Of Gallo-Roman antiquities (15^th-17^th centuries)

Ville	Cinq-Mars-la-Pile (Indre-et-Loire, 37)
Subject(s)	Tomb

Author(s)	Platter, Thomas II
	Physician from Basel, younger brother of Felix Platter (1574-1628)
Resource type	Manuscript
Date	1599
Inscription
References	Platter A λ V, ff. 436v°-437= Keiser 1968, p. 491
Bibliography	Keiser 1968 ; Le Roy Ladurie 1995 ; Provost 1988-3, p. 112 ; Gros 2001, pp. 421-422 ; Lemerle 2005, pp. 28-31 ; Le Roy Ladurie 2006
Remarks	This squared funeral pyre, known during the Renaissance as the 'Pile-Saint-Nicolas', corresponds to a type well known in south-eastern Gaul. The second level on the southern facade is decorated with twelve panels composed of different coloured bricks according to a Roman technique employed in the 2^nd century AD. It may have been the tomb of a Gaulish merchant

Transcription « Wie wier dann nachmahlen auch (la Pile St. Nicolas) Sant Niclaus thurn gesehen haben, dergleichen einer zu Lusignan ist, darauf [437] die schöne Melusina soll gefangen gelegen sein, wie ein gantze history darvon geschriben ist ; disen nenneten man mir auch (la Pile de Phees) der götteren thurn. » = “After supper, we also saw the Tower of Saint Nicholas (Pile Saint-Nicolas), which is similar to the one at Lusignan, and where, they say, the beautiful Melusina was later held prisoner – a whole story has been written on the subject. This tower is also known as the 'Pile de Phees'.”