When Nice Was Nissa

Cours Saleya

The old town's market square, lined with ochre buildings and filled with flower and produce stalls every morning except Monday.

You are standing on Cours Saleya, the living room of Vieux Nice. This long rectangle of a square runs parallel to the sea, just one block back from the water. Every morning except Monday, it fills with flower sellers, fruit stalls, and vendors hawking olives, socca, and lavender honey. On Mondays, the flowers give way to an antiques market.

The square takes its name from the Salier family, who owned land here in the 16th century, back when Nice answered to Turin, not Paris. In the late 1800s, the Carnival floats paraded down this very stretch before the route moved to Place Masséna.

Look up at the buildings. Those colors are the palette of Liguria and Piedmont, not northern France: ochre, burnt sienna, faded gold. The tall, narrow houses with green shutters follow a Genoese model. Even the rhythm of the market, the way the vendors call out and the way people stop to talk, owes more to Italy than to the Île-de-France.

At the eastern end of the square, the Chapelle de la Miséricorde hides behind a sober façade. That is your next stop. When you are ready, walk toward it.

Chapelle de la Miséricorde

An 18th-century Baroque chapel built by a Turin architect for the Theatine order, now home to the Black Penitents brotherhood.

You are looking at the Chapelle de la Miséricorde, one of the finest pieces of Baroque architecture in Nice, and one of the least obviously French. It was built between 1747 and 1770 to designs by Bernardo Antonio Vittone, an architect from Turin. At the time, Nice was part of the Kingdom of Sardinia, ruled by the House of Savoy, and its architects, its stucco workers, and its money came from across the Alps, not from Provence.

Step inside if the door is open. The interior is built on an elliptical plan, which was Vittone's signature. Gilded stucco covers nearly every surface. A trompe-l'oeil fresco on the ceiling opens the dome to a painted sky. The light pours in from high windows you cannot see directly, a Baroque trick that makes the source of illumination feel divine.

Originally this was the church of Saint Gaëtan, built for the Theatine order on top of old royal salt warehouses. After the French Revolution, the archconfraternity of the Black Penitents bought it and gave it the name it carries now. The Black Penitents date back to the 14th century; they accompanied the condemned to execution and buried the dead. They still meet here.

When you leave, turn right and follow Rue Saint-Gaëtan as it curves into the old town. It will lead you to Place Rossetti.

Place Rossetti

A lively square named for the Rossetti family of Niçois nobility, with café terraces and the famous Fenocchio ice-cream shop.

Place Rossetti is the social heart of the old town. On a warm evening, every table at every café is taken, and the square hums with the sound of conversation and espresso machines. It is named for the Rossetti family, who were among the leading Niçois nobility under the House of Savoy. Ignace Rossetti, a prefect and senator, was the grandfather of Antoine Gautier, the violin collector whose instruments you will see later at the Palais Lascaris.

The cathedral fills the south side of the square. Its façade, a confection of grey and cream stone added in the 1820s and repainted in recent decades in Ligurian rococo polychromy, looks more like a church in Genoa or Turin than anything you would find in Arles or Avignon. The dome, covered in colored glazed tiles laid in a geometric pattern, is pure Genoese style.

Before you go in, walk around the square. Fenocchio, the ice-cream shop on the corner, has been here since 1966 and serves flavors like rosemary, olive oil, and tomato-basil alongside the classics. It is a reminder that this city's palate, like its architecture, was shaped east of the frontier. When you are ready, step inside the cathedral.