Hotel d'Agar - Cavaillon

The Hotel d'Agar is a mansion built on the ruins of the Greek and Roman city.

The first elements date from the twelfth century. It has been redesigned over the centuries and has unveiled numerous archaeological and artistic treasures: Gothic tower of the 15th century and its gargoyles, a painted ceiling made in 1537 for the coming of Francis I, a remarkable medical cycle of stucco fireplaces around 1600, the remains of a temple and baths of Augustus in the 1st century BC. etc. Heir of the Renaissance curiosities cabinets, it houses an incredible collection, the fruit of more than 27 years of diligent research and rescues of treasures dedicated to oblivion or destruction. This unique “anti-museum” offers you the opportunity to discover objects of archeology, ethnology, contemporary art, with numerous interventions by artists.

The visible works form an unlikely accumulation of all periods with some highlights: caravagesque paintings, contemporary Sèvres porcelains, one of the oldest pharmacy furniture in France, a textile ensemble ranging from the Neolithic to today, the most important Provencal nursery of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and so much other treasures.

A remarkable garden

The garden of the Hotel d'Agar is probably the only one in France to have retained this function for more than two millennia.

It was the garden of the bishops of the city until the revolution. Are being explored the remains of a Hellenistic temple with its painted plasters, a mithraeum and the famous “treasure of Cavaillon”, 303 remarkable silver denarius. This treasure was discovered in 2010 and is the most important discovery in the Vaucluse. Francis I, Catherine de Medici, the Marquis of Sade, Louis XVI, René Char and many others walked there.

Today, many interventions by contemporary artists are planned in an ephemeral or perennial way, while preserving the intimate memory of the Bomarzo garden.