Saint-Pierre de Montmartre (French pronunciation: [sɛ̃ pjɛʁ də mɔ̃maʁtʁ]) is the second oldest surviving church in Paris, after the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Pres.

[1] According to the earliest biography of Saint Ignatius Loyola, the martyrium of Montmartre Abbey was the location where the vows were taken that led to the founding of the Society of Jesus.

[1] Théodore Vacquier, the first municipal archaeologist of Paris, identified remains of a wall as belonging to the Temple of Mars, from which he believed Montmartre took its name.

He and his wife, Adelaide de Savoye, founded a royal convent for Benedictine nuns from the Monastery of Saint-Pierre-des-Dames.

[10] During the French Revolution, the Abbey of Montmartre and the crypts were destroyed, and the chapel was transformed for a time into a "Temple of Reason", then largely abandoned.

The facade dates from the 1775, and features three modern cast bronze doorways, added in 1980 by the Italian sculptor Tommaso Gismondi (1906–2003).

The capitals of columns have a variety of Romanesque and early Gothic motifs, including acanthus leaves, crochets and stylised water lilies.

[13] The lower aisle on the right side of the nave, facing the choir, has several picturesque capitals on the columns, dating from the 12th century.

The double arch which separates the choir from the apse has another unusual feature; it rests upon two ancient columns, dating from the 2nd or 3rd centuries AD, with carved marble capitals from the Merovingian period (6th–7th centuries A.D.)[15] – The church displays a statue of Our Lady of Montmartre, also known as Our Lady of Beauty, the patron saint of the artists of Montmartre.

It depicts Christ receiving a message from God carried by an angel, while the apostles sleep below, and contrasts the somber shadows of the earthly world below with the illumination of the heavens at the top of the painting.