Hôtel des Monnaies

The dedicatory inscription on the façade indicates that the hotel was built in 1619. The building was commissioned by Cardinal Scipione Borghese, legate of Pope Paul VI. However, there is no document attributing the construction of the Hôtel des Monnaies to an architect, as the archives of the vice-legation were destroyed by Louis XV's occupying troops in the 1th century and then during the Revolution. It is, according to Joseph Girard, "the most Italian of Avignon's façades." He suggests that its out-of-scale ornamentation may have been sculpted by Simone Bartolacci, a Florentine sculptor who was present in Avignon between 1615 and 1634.

The Mint became the barracks of the Pontifical Light Horse in 1760, which they shared with the Maréchaussée in 1768 during the French occupation. 2 Following the French Revolution, which saw Avignon annexed to France, the Mint became the Gendarmerie barracks from 1790 to 1840. The town hall services occupied it from 1846 to 1852, during the construction of the town hall. The music conservatory was established there from 1860 and for a time it was located alongside a barracks for the town's fire brigade.

The Hôtel des Monnaies was sold by the city of Avignon to be transformed into a boutique hotel.