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French basilica displays rediscovered Raphael painting

Visitors queued up at a southern French basilica to see a rediscovered painting by Italian renaissance painter Raphael.

Published: 22 April 2024 08:36 CEST
French basilica displays rediscovered Raphael painting
Clerics stand next to the painting of Marie Madeleine, painted by Italian painter Raphael, exposed for the first time at the Basilica of Saint-Maximin, in Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume, southwestern France, on April 21, 2024. Photo by Christophe SIMON / AFP

The small portrait of Mary Magdalene is being displayed for a month in the Sainte-Marie-Madeleine basilica in the Var département of southern France, which houses relics of Mary Magdalene – making it Christianity’s third most important tomb.

AFP saw around 50 visitors queuing Sunday afternoon to admire this forgotten painting by Raphael, known for painting “Three Graces” and “The School of Athens”.

The painting is thought to date back to a meeting between the painter and Leonardo da Vinci in 1505.

Visitors were required to pay €3 to see the work, which will be used to support the restoration of the basilica.

A French collector bought the portrait from a London gallery’s website for £30,000.

He then called a UNESCO expert in Italy, who authenticated the work in September.

After countless analyses – including infrared light to reveal the layers of carbon hidden by the paint pigments – they were able to attribute the painting to Raphael (1483-1520).

Mary Magdalene, the first witness to the resurrection of Jesus, is an important figure in the Gospels.

Often presented as a repentant sinner, she is said to have spent the last 30 years of her life in a cave in the Sainte-Baume massif, some twenty kilometres from the basilica, which has become a major Christian pilgrimage site.

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FOOD AND DRINK

Paris bakers attempt world’s longest baguette

A dozen French bakers have set their minds to beating the world record for the world's longest baguette - hoping to join a long list of French records from stretchiest aligot to biggest tarte tatin.

Published: 3 May 2024 13:36 CEST
Paris bakers attempt world's longest baguette

On Sunday, 12 Paris bakers will attempt to beat the world record for the longest baguette, as part of the Suresnes Baguette Show, which was organised by the French confederation of bakers and pastry chefs. 

The current record is held by Italian bakers, who in 2019 baked a 132.6 m long baguette – roughly the height of the Great Pyramid at Giza (which is now about 138.5 metres tall). 

By contrast, the standard French baguette is between 60 and 70 centimetres long, and roughly 5-7cm in diametre.

The French boulangers will have some challenges – they’ll need to knead all of the dough and then put it together on site. The only ingredients allowed are flour, water, yeast and salt. In order to count, the bread will have to be at least 5cm thick across its entire length.

According to the press release for the event, cooking the giant baguette will take at least eight hours.

Once it’s prepared, it will be up to the judges from the Guinness Book of World Records to determine if the record was beaten or not.

Then, the baguette will be cut up and Nutella will be spread across it, with part of it shared with the public and the other part handed out to homeless people.

What about other French world records?

There are official competitions every year to mark the best croissant and baguette, plus plenty of bizarre festivals in towns across France.

The French also like to try their hand at world records. 

Stretchiest aligot – If you haven’t come across aligot before, it’s basically a superior form of cheesy mash – it’s made by mixing mashed potato with butter, garlic, cream and cheese.

The traditional cheese used is Laguiole but you can also use tomme or any cheese that goes stringy when stretched. That stretchiness is very important – it makes aligot is a popular dish for world records. 

In 2020, three brothers managed to stretch the aligot 6.2m, and apparently in 2021 they broke that record too (though unofficially), by adding an extra metre.

READ MORE: 5 things to know about aligot – France’s cheesy winter dish

And in 2023, in Albi in southern France, local media reported that a man had made the world’s largest aligot (not the stretchiest). He reportedly used 200kg of potatoes and 100kg of Aubrac tomme cheese. 

Cheesy pizza – A Lyon-based pizza maker, Benoît Bruel, won a spot in the 2023 Guinness Book of World Records for creating a pizza with 1,001 cheeses on top of it. 

 
 
 
 
 
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Biggest raclette – In March, the city of Saint-Etienne in France claimed the world record for the ‘largest raclette’.

There were 2,236 people who participated, and the raclette involved 620 kg of cheese, 350 kg of cold meat and one tonne of potatoes. 

Largest omelette – Unfortunately, France does not hold this title anymore, though it did in 1994, when the town of Montourtier in the département of Mayenne cooked up an omelette on a giant pan with a 13.11m diameter. 

Currently, the title is held by Portugal, according to Guinness. In 2012, the town of Santarém cooked an omelette weighing 7.466 tonnes.

Still, France cooks giant omelettes all the time. Every Easter, the ‘Brotherhood of the Giant Omelette’ cooks up one, cracking thousands of eggs and passing out portions to the people in the town of Bessières.

Largest tarte tatin – The French town of Lamotte-Beuvron also beat a world record in 2019 for making the largest tarte tatin, which weighed 308kg. 

This isn’t the first time the French have experimented with gigantic apple pies. In 2000, the country made history (and the Guinness Book of World Records) for creating an apple pie that measured 15.2m in diameter. It used 13,500 apples and required a crane to be lifted (as shown below).

(Photo by MICHEL HERMANS / AFP)
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