Villa Béthania
The Villa Béthania , named after Bethanien , the hometown of the siblings Maria , Martha and Lazarus mentioned in the New Testament of the Bible , is a building in the southern French village of Rennes-le-Château . It was built between 1901 and 1905 after extensive renovations to the village church of Sainte Marie-Madeleine on the estate of the village priest Abbé Saunière . The neo-Renaissance house was the rectory and residence of Saunière, where he lived with his housekeeper Marie Dénarnaud.
Today a restaurant and a small museum are set up in the building, where objects from the property of the village pastor are displayed. A small park and the Tour Magdala also belonged to the pastor's estate .
On March 3, 1981, two months before his election as French President, François Mitterrand visited the village of Rennes-le-Château with its famous buildings.
The rectory gained a certain degree of fame through a mention in the pseudoscientific book The Holy Grail and His Heirs by the authors Henry Lincoln , Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh and became the subject of modern legend formation along with other buildings in Rennes-le-Château. Graphic representations of the building can be found in the computer game Gabriel Knight 3, which focuses on the buildings in Rennes-le-Château and the village itself.
literature
- Tatiana Kletzky-Pradere: Rennes-le-Château. Tourist guide. Sival, Carcassonne 1997, ISBN 2-904556-07-9 .
Web links
Coordinates: 42 ° 55 ′ 40 ″ N , 2 ° 15 ′ 45 ″ E