Founded in 910, Cluny Abbey owed its extraordinary reputation to its strict observance of the Benedictine Rule which made it answerable only to Rome. At the height of its power, the abbey commanded over ten thousand monks living in more than a thousand religious centres stretching from England to Italy and from the Iberian Peninsula to the depths of Germany. The abbey was also well served by the strength of character and the longevity of its first six abbots, the last of whom, Hugh, a native of Semur-en-Brionnais, was instrumental in rebuilding the abbey church which was to remain the largest abbey church in Christendom until the 16C. With its five naves and a great narthex, a double transept and a choir basking in the glory of radiating chapels, a central nave thirty metres in height and even higher cupolas under the bell towers, the abbey church made a fitting setting for lavish and sumptuous liturgies. Here, the infinite beauty of the Gregorian plainsong was matched by the exquisite sculpted and painted déco Popes, kings and emperors were frequent visitors to a place which was synonymous with spirituality but also a force in the realm of the arts, thought and politics. Scarcely a tenth – but what a tenth! – of the church and the numerous buildings survives to remind us of the prestige of this "Light of the Middle Ages" whose flame was to die out with the advent of the Cistercians and the new mendicant orders - so much so that it fell an easy victim to demolition in the wake of the French Revolution, at a time when the notion of "historical monument" was still in its infancy. In spite of the destruction, there is still much to admire and learn from an exhaustive visit of Cluny and the exploration of the many buildings representing the Cluny style. Also well worth a visit: the abbey’s Flour Store with its exhibits of capitals from the choir of the abbey church and the town’s Museum of Art and Archaeology whose countless sculptures taken from the church and from Cluny’s Romanesque houses form a gigantic stone patchwork. A very good idea of what Cluny and its vanished church must once have looked like may be obtained from the computer-generated images of the church. Many houses in the town’s historical centre still bear some resemblance to their appearance when the Abbey was at its apogee: the elegant sculpted arcatures of the living quarters may be admired above the large arcades of the ground floor providing access to a merchant’s store or craftsman’s workshop. This ensemble of Romanesque civil architecture is one of the largest in Europe, ranking second only to Venice. The numerous 19C houses, decorated with Romanesque remains taken from the abbey, add a welcome romantic note as visitors travel back in time to the glory that was Cluny. The north-eastern quarter of the former abbey is now occupied by the Cluny National Stud, well worth visiting even by those who are not horse enthusiasts. The nearby chapel of Berzé-la-Ville, once the abbots’ summer residence, gives a colourful and lively account of Cluniac art and pomp. Rebuilt at the time of Cluny III under the auspices of Abbot Hugh, the chapel is a very rare example of a building which has preserved the painted decoration prevalent at that time. The great Christ in Majesty, surrounded by the apostles against a blue background, is typical of the sophisticated art inherited from Rome. This modestly proportioned edifice is set in the midst of some of the most beautiful countryside to be found in Burgundy.