Chapelle Sainte-Croix

Chapelle Sainte-Croix stands in Nice as a late-Baroque chapel linked to the Archconfraternity of the White Penitents. Its façade carries a bell tower, a feeding pelican, and two Latin mottos dedicated to the Cross. Inside, light-blue, grey, and white decoration covers the long rectangular nave, choir, and sanctuary.

The Minims began building the chapel in 1633, before Antoine Spinelli oversaw its reconstruction between 1765 and 1767. The White Penitents later used the space for worship, prayer, and charitable work in the community. Since 1987, the building has held status as a historic monument. Its wooden sanctuary stalls rise across three sides in two levels, recalling the arrangement of a monastic church.

Paintings and frescoes present Constantine, Saint Helena, and the discovery of the True Cross. A trompe-l'œil vault shows the Glorious Cross ascending into the sky above the sanctuary. The side altars include a seventeenth-century wooden Pietà and a restored eighteenth-century Saint Michael. At the main altar, a cross rises from a skull while a pelican perches above it.