Note 187 — Chapter VII · Plantagenet Gothic Architecture[174]
Reading edition
The abbatial of St. Nicolas-du-Ronceray is in a lamentable state; its nave serves as a hall for the Arts and Crafts school, the transept’s north arm is a laundry, and its south arm a roofless ruin. The dome at its crossing is without distinct pedestal. The nuns of this house erected at the side of their own sanctuary, the Trinité church for parish use. The present admirable Trinité was built after a fire in 1062. Its chevet and transept are the oldest parts, and then rose the nave, covered with First-Period Angevin vaults (c. 1170). Chapel-like niches are lost in the thickness of the walls.
Angers’ abbatial of St. Martin contains Gallo-Roman, Merovingian, and Carolingian vestiges, and parts of the XI, XII, and XV centuries. Fulk Nerra rebuilt it on returning from one of his pilgrimages. Over its transept-crossing is a dome modeled on the one at Fontevrault, without separate pedestal. The church possesses one of the earliest eight-branch Gothic vaults extant; King René added the Flamboyant parts. Chanoine Pinier at his own expense is restoring the choir and transept.
Congrès Archéologique, 1910, vol. 1, p. 211, “St. Martin,” Chanoine Pinier; and vol. 2, p. 12, “St. Nicolas-du-Ronceray,” E. Lefèvre-Pontalis.