By Garen Ajderhanyan · · 6 min read
In brief
On the hill of Cimiez, above Nice, lay Cemenelum, Roman town and capital of the province of Alpes-Maritimes in Antiquity. What remains are the arena, the thermal baths, an archaeological site and its museum. Around them, the strata are layered: the Franciscan monastery and its cemetery, where Matisse and Dufy rest, the grand hotels of winter visitors, and the Matisse museum, housed in the villa des Arènes.
What was Cemenelum?
One thinks one knows Nice by its sea. Its oldest urban history is read, however, on a hill. The Greeks had founded Nikaia near the shore, the Romans preferred the heights. On the plateau of Cimiez lay Cemenelum, a town in its own right, with its streets, its thermal baths and its amphitheatre. When I climb the boulevard de Cimiez, I always think of this inversion: the ancient town turned its back on the sea.
In Roman Antiquity, Cemenelum was the capital of the province of Alpes-Maritimes. An administrative capital, therefore, set on the road that linked Italy to Gaul. Justice was rendered there, taxes were collected there, baths were taken there. I refrain from precise dates, the specialists at the archaeology museum do it better than I, but the essential holds in one sentence: before being a residential hill, Cimiez was a place of power.
What remains of Roman Cimiez?
The arena, first. An amphitheatre of modest dimensions, which has nothing of the great vessels of Arles or Nîmes, and that is precisely what touches me: one reads there a provincial town, not an imperial showcase. The stone ellipse is still there, set in a garden planted with olive trees where Niçois families come on Sundays. Few towns offer this: an ancient monument become a neighbourhood lawn.
Below, the archaeological site preserves the thermal baths, bath complexes of which certain walls still rise high, and a layout of Roman streets. The archaeology museum of Nice, adjacent, gathers what the excavations have yielded: ceramics, glassware, coins, inscriptions. It is the best gateway to understanding the site, and one of the visits I most readily recommend to our foreign readers.
How did Cimiez become the hill of winter visitors?
One must then skip the centuries. In the Belle Époque, Cimiez becomes the hill of winter visitors: the European aristocracy spends the harsh season there, and the grand hotels rise above the olive trees. Queen Victoria herself stayed in Cimiez, at the Regina, whose white silhouette still dominates the boulevard.
These palaces have since been converted into flats, and it is one of the characteristics of the quarter: one inhabits former hotels, behind façades designed to receive sovereigns. The residential Cimiez of today descends in a direct line from that Cimiez.
Why Matisse in Cimiez?
Henri Matisse settled in Nice, then in Cimiez, where he notably occupied a flat in the former Regina. He found there what so many painters came to seek here: the light, a winter light both soft and clear, which holds the colours.
The Matisse museum occupies the villa des Arènes, a villa of Genoese inspiration with a red façade, set between the archaeological site and the olive garden. I like this proximity: the Roman amphitheatre, the olive trees, Matisse. Three strata of the Mediterranean in a single gaze.
What to see today, in one walk?
I advise climbing by the boulevard de Cimiez and taking the hill as a reading: the arena and its olive garden, the site of the thermal baths and its archaeology museum, the villa des Arènes, then the Franciscan monastery, its garden suspended above the town and its cemetery, where Henri Matisse and Raoul Dufy rest.
From up there, Nice presents itself in section: the Roman town beneath your feet, the town of winter visitors around you, the modern town below, and the sea in the distance, underlined by the Promenade. It is perhaps the lesson of Cimiez: in Nice, one never inhabits a single epoch at a time.
Frequently asked questions
- What was Cemenelum?
- A Roman town established on the hill of Cimiez, in Nice, capital of the province of Alpes-Maritimes in Antiquity. Its vestiges, arena, thermal baths, street layouts, are still visible within the archaeological site of Cimiez.
- Can one visit the arena and thermal baths of Cimiez?
- Yes. The arena stands in a public garden planted with olive trees, and the thermal baths are discovered within the archaeological site, of which the archaeology museum of Nice constitutes the natural entrance.
- Where is the Matisse museum located?
- On the hill of Cimiez, in the villa des Arènes, a villa of Genoese inspiration neighbouring the archaeological site and the olive garden.
- Where do Matisse and Dufy rest?
- In the cemetery of the Franciscan monastery of Cimiez, which overlooks Nice a few steps from the Matisse museum.
- What difference between Greek Nice and Roman Nice?
- The Greek city, Nikaia, stood near the shore, the Roman town, Cemenelum, developed on the hill of Cimiez. The two eventually merged into the Nice we know.
References
Districts
The author
Garen AjderhanyanEditor of La Gazette de la Promenade
Editor of La Gazette de la Promenade. He writes on Riviera property and the art of living, from Nice.