Notre Dame Paris

jescapes on 11 22, 2008

Built on the site of a Christian basilica which had been occupied previously by a temple dating from Roman times, the church was begun in 1163. The church could be said to be finished in 1345. With the ravages of time and damages caused by men and by numerous tragic wars, the church’s original appearance changed over the centuries. It was said to ran the risk of being demolished in 1793.

Notre-Dame at that point was dedicated to the Goddess of Reason, when Robespierre introduced this cult. But it was reconsecrated in 1802, in time for the pomp and ceremony of the coronation of Napoleon I by Pope Pius VII in 1804.  It underwent restoration between 1844 and 1864 and was threatened with destruction by fire in 1871.

Its facade is divided vertically by pilasters into three parts and also divided horizontally by galleries into three sections, the lowest of which has three deep portals. Above this is the Gallery of the Kings, with twenty-eight statues representing the kings of Israel and Judaea. The central section has two grandiose mullioned windows, on each side of the rose-window and is nearly 33 feet in diameter. This central section is also adorned by statues of the Madonna and Child and angels in the center and of Adam and Eve at the sides. Above this runs a gallery of narrow, intertwined arch motifs, linking the two towers at the sides which were never completed but which, even without their spires, have a picturesque and fascinating quality with their tall mullioned windows.

Here Viollet-le-Duc gave free rein to his imagination: he created an unreal world of demons who look down with ironic or pensive expressions on the distant city below, of birds with fantastic and imaginary forms, of the grotesque figures of leering monsters, emerging from the most disparate and unlikely points of the cathedral.

Crouching on a Gothic pinnacle, half-hidden by a spire or hanging from the extension of a wall, these petrified figures seem to have been here for centuries; immobile, meditating on the destiny of the human race which swarms below them.

Entering the interior of the cathedral, one is immediately struck above all by its dimensions; it can accommodate  as many as 9000 persons. Cylindrical piers 16 feet in diameter divide the church into five aisles, and there is a double ambulatory around the transept and choir. A gallery with double openings runs around the apse above the arcades, being surmounted in turn by the ample windows from which a tranquil light enters the church. Fast forward and having reach the end of the church, if one turns towards the main entrance one cannot help being struck by the great rose-window above the 18th-century organ.

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