eigneur of Vaucluse, was the great protector of the Renaissance poet Petrarch.
In 1309 the city was chosen by Clement V as his residence, and from that time till 1377 was the papal seat. In 1348 the city was sold by Joanna, Countess of Provence, to Clement VI for 80,000 florins.
In 1475 pope Sixtus IV raised the diocese of Avignon to the rank of an archbishopric, in favour of his nephew Giuliano della Rovere, who later became Pope Julius II. The Archdiocese of Avignon has canonic jurisdiction over the department of Vaucluse. Before the French Revolution it had as suffragan sees Carpentras, Vaison and Cavaillon, which were united by the Napoleonic Concordat of 1801 to Avignon, together with the Diocese of Apt, a suffragan of Aix-en-Provence. However, at that same time Avignon was reduced to the rank of a bishopric and was made a suffragan see of Aix. The Archdiocese of Avignon was re-established in 1822, receiving as suffragan sees the Diocese of Viviers (restored in 1822), Valence: (formerly under Lyon), Nîmes (restored in 1822) and Montpellier(formerly under Toulouse).
In 2002, as part of the reshuffling of the ecclesiastic provinces of France, the Archdiocese of Avignon ceased to be a metropolitan and became, instead a suffragan diocese of the new province ofMarseilles, while keeping its rank of archdiocese
