Cimiez

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Cimiez (Template:IPA; Italian: Cimella) is an upper-class neighborhood in Nice, Southern France.<ref name="FRiviera">Template:Cite web</ref> The area contains the Musée Matisse<ref name="bbc1">Template:Cite web</ref> and the ruins of Cemenelum,<ref name="bbc1"/> capital of the Ancient Roman province Alpes Maritimae on the Ligurian coast.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Cemenelum was an important rival of Nice,<ref name="blvrd">Template:Cite web</ref> continuing to exist as a separate city till the time of the Lombard invasions. The ruins include an arena, amphitheater, thermal baths, and paleochristian basilica.

During the Belle Epoque Cimiez became a favourite holiday resort of European royalty: Victoria, Edward VII, George V, and Leopold II stayed in Cimiez.<ref name="blvrd"/>

Close to the ruins is the Excelsior Régina Palace, where Queen Victoria spent part of her long visits to the French Riviera.<ref name="FRiviera"/>

From 1974 to 2010<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> the Nice Jazz Festival was held among the Roman ruins in July each year. (In 2011 the festival moved to the Place Masséna.)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="cnn">Template:Cite web</ref>

Also here can be found the Cimiez monastery and church, used by the Franciscan friars since the 16th century.<ref name="FRiviera"/> The church, with a baroque altar from the seventeenth century and a marble cross from 1477, houses the paintings Pietà (triptych from 1475), Crucifixion (1512) and Deposition (1515) by the Italian artist Ludovico Brea.<ref name="FRiviera"/> On display are also more than 300 documents and works of art from the 15th to 18th centuries. Buried in the cemetery near the monastery are the painters Henri Matisse and Raoul Dufy, alongside the winner of the 1937 Nobel Prize for Literature, Roger Martin du Gard.

Cimiez contains a large Jewish population (around 20%).