Last modified: 2018-06-28 by ivan sache
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Flag of Saint-Avertin - Image by Ivan Sache, 6 May 2005
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The municipality of Saint-Avertin (14,954 inhabitants in 2015, 1,325 ha; municipal website) is located in the southern outskirts of the city of Tours, on the left bank on river Cher.
In the Gallo-Roman times, a hamlet called Vinciacum was set up near quarries where stones required for the building of Caesarodonum (Tours) were extracted. The village took later the name of Vinçay. In 1162, St. Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, took part to a Council in Tours with a Scottish monk named Aberdeen (c. 1120-1180). After Becket's murder in the cathedral of Canterbury upon King Henry II's request in 1170, Aberdeen came back to Touraine and lived as an hermit in the wood of Cangé. The hermit, locally known as Avertin, became famous for his healing skills, especially against headache. The inhabitants of Vinçay convinced him to be their parish priest. Afer his death, Avertin was buried in the parish church, which became a place of pilgrimage. Vinçay was renamed Saint-Avertin in 1371.
Jean de Coningham (? - 1495), Captain of the Scottish Guard of King
Louis XI, purchased in 1489 the castle of Cangé, and transformed the
old medieval fortress into a more pleasant castle. Louis XI (1423-1483;
King in 1461) enjoyed Touraine and stayed often in his castle of
Plessis (today in Plessis-lès-Tours), where he ended his life in a very
shanty atmosphere; the King believed he had leprosy, was scared by
imaginary plots and superstition, and was surrounded by a court
dominated by astrologers and charlatans of that ilk.
The Coninghams owned the castle of Cangé until 1679.
In June 1940, following the German invasion, the French government withdrew to Tours. President Albert Lebrun spent five days in the castle of Cangé, where he presided two Councils of the Ministers on 12 and 13 June.
The book-binder and typograph Christophe Plantin (1514-1589) was born
in Saint-Avertin. He learned binding in Paris and typography in Caen.
He settled in 1549 in Antwerp as a leather worker. In 1555, he broke his shoulder and had to change job; he opened a printing house, where
he operated up to 22 presses. Plantin was accusated in 1562 to have
printed an heretic book and had to leave Antwerp for a few months. The
humanist Justus Lipsus called him in Leyden in 1583, but he quickly
came back to Antwerp, where he died and was buried in the Notre-Dame
cathedral.
Plantin printed more than 1,500 books. His masterpiece is
the polyglot Bible ordered by King of Spain Philip II. It took five
years (1568-1572) to Plantin to produce the eight volumes of the Bible,
edited by the Spanish humanist Arias Montanus. Plantin was confered the
title of Architypograph of the King and the monopoly on the release of
certain liturgical books in Spain and in the Spanish colonies.
Among the other Plantin's works are Ortelius' atlases, Dodoens'
botanical treaties, musical scores, Guicciardini's description of the
Low Countries and Lipsus' treaties. Plantin's trademark was the Golden
Compass and his motto was Labore et constantia.
The writer Jules Romains (Louis Farigoule, 1885-1972) purchased in 1929 the Grand'Cour estate in Saint-Avertin. He wrote there parts of his master series, Les hommes de bonnes volonté, in which he expressed his "unanimist" ideas.
Ivan Sache, 6 May 2005
The flag of Saint-Avertin (photo) is white with the municipal logo, which is described as follows:
Blue to symbolize river Cher, source of life and welfare; green to represent our privileged environment ; red, as a symbol of our economical dynamism... To these colours is added a determined signature that expresses the personality of Saint-Avertin in the future, prepared to answer the challenge of the third millenium.
With that mind was designed and selected the logotype of Saint-Avertin. It is not supposed to replace the coat of arms, which remains the heritage of the city, but shall convey the image of a city in motion, of a city looking towards the future.
Pascal Vagnat & Ivan Sache, 6 May 2005