Abstract

The invention of Polignac will evoke the way in which the circles of amateurs of art and style of antiquity, scholars, archaeologists and artists (local, national but also international) created, invented and glorified the castle and the name “Polignac” starting from a idealized mineral environment.

Since 1471, writings tell that St George, evangelistic figure of Velay, would have come in Polignac to demolish the representation of God Apollo, Master of the idols of the area. Consequently, the family of Polignac, whose native cradle is the castle, sees itself offering divine origins.

The site of Polignac shared the scientific community between the “apollomaniacs”, in favour of a legitimacy drawn from antiquity to ensure the radiation and the power fortress through times, and the “antiapollomaniacs”, which broke this mythological fabric.
The subject will open the doors of a world where the vellaves traditions have been with being (re)discovered by the means of the local scholarship for five centuries and in particular with XIXe and XXe centuries. This study will explore the networks of the learned societies to infiltrate their bonds and all that could have influenced the judgement of the researcher following the social origin, political, religious, …

The confrontation of the texts and the iconography will enable us to find elements allowing a better comprehension of the monumental history of the castle.
The family acts on the destiny of its name and supplements the mythical dimension which is attached to it.
The topicality and the excavations in progress let predict new studies, new invalidations or confirmations concerning the presence of an ancient building on the top or with the foot of the village.

The name “Polignac”, the castle and the rock which supports on it, release one will have palpable: it is at the same time historical and mythological, almost magic.
It is a “place of memory” which since prehistory is the witness of our patrimony, a support with the scientific and artistic meditation which carries an ancestral legend.