Saint Donat du Val

Donatus of Val was a hermit, considered a saint by the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches, who died around 535. His feast day is August 19. He was born in the Orléans region. He was invited by John I, Bishop of Sisteron, to settle in the south of Gaul. He retired as a hermit to the foot of the Lure Mountain, near Montfort, where his hermitage was discovered amidst a complex of four chapels and churches. A cult has been dedicated to him since at least the 9th century. A novel by Jean-Claude Barbier, *Temps couvert sur la Provence*, recounts his story in a fictionalized way, from his arrival in Upper Provence and his time at Theopolis—a religious city on the Saint-Geniez plateau founded by the Roman dignitary Caius Posthumus Dardanus—to his hermitage in the Mardaric valley, known as Val-Saint-Donat.