ABSTRACT
Sibyls are female ecstatic seers associated in Antiquity with holy places, often caves. In the Hellenistic period the sibyls multiplied, the most famous one in Italy emerging in Cumae, where she would be immortalized by Virgil in Book VI of the Aeneid. The choir stalls in Auch, 113 in all, were begun shortly before 1520, ordered and supervised by the cathedral's archbishop, Cardinal Francois-Guillaume de Clermont-Lodeve and completed in 1554 under the episcopate of Cardinal d'Este. The enclosed choir and its intricate sculptures at Saint Bertrand owe their existence to Jean de Mauleon , bishop of the Comminges from 1523 to 1551. With the Sibyl of Europe, she is the other 'new' sibyl, bringing the group to twelve. Augustus went to the Capitoline Hill and consulted the Tiburtine sibyl on the day of Christ's birth. The oldest of the individualized, named sibyls, her place of origin is Erythrae, an Ionic city on the coast of Asia Minor.
