Tour Ripert

A castle in the heart of the old town :
Originally, three castles stood in the heart of the old town of Valréas : Riperti, Dauphin and St Jean. The last two were destroyed in the XVth and XIXth centuries, but the keep of the Riperti castle, the Ripert Tower, survives among the ruins. This feudal fortress was built at the beginning of the XIIth century by the co-lords of Valréas in a troubled time when the inhabitants often came to seek refuge there. The town of Valréas gradually formed a cluster around the castle, and a first wall was built around the town. In 1317, the castle was definitively acquired by the papacy.
In the XVth century, the town added the dock to the tower. At the same time, the basement of the tower was converted into a papal prison and retained that function until the Revolution.

The Ripert Tower :
The architecture of the Ripert Tower is in the Romanesque tradition. It is square in shape and 17 metres high and has three floors and a terrace, to which a small structure has been added in order to house the bell of the dock. Originally, the tower had no stairs: access to the different floors was by rope or wooden ladders. Today, the Ripert Tower is equipped with view indicators and offers beautiful views of the landscapes of Haut Vaucluse and Drôme provençale.

Valréas in Papal territory :
In the XIIIth century, Italy became unsafe for the Popes in Rome, so the papal court settled in Provence, where seven successive popes resided. They acquired the Comtat Venaissin (in 1274) and Avignon (in 1348), which kept the status of papal States until the Revolution. In 1317, the Pope made a major acquisition on the border with the Kingdom of France: the town of Valréas.
In the past, the region of Valréas was a papal enclave within the Kingdom of France, and today it is a Vaucluse enclave in the Drôme department!

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