Notre Dame de Paris: Western Façade
Notre Dame de Paris, known simply as Notre Dame in English, is a
Gothic cathedral on the eastern half of the
Île de la Cité in Paris, France, with its main entrance to the west. It is still used as a Roman
Catholic cathedral and is the seat of the Archbishop of Paris. Notre Dame de
Paris is widely considered one of the finest examples of French Gothic architecture. It was restored and saved from destruction
by Viollet-le-Duc, one of France's most famous architects. Notre Dame
translates as "Our Lady" from French.
Notre Dame de Paris was one of the first Gothic cathedrals, and its construction spanned the Gothic period. Its sculptures and
stained glass show the heavy influence of naturalism, giving them a more secular look that was lacking from earlier Romanesque architecture.
Notre Dame de Paris was among the first buildings in the world to use the flying
buttress. The building was not originally designed to include the flying buttresses around the choir and nave. After the construction began and the thinner walls
(popularized in the Gothic style) grew ever higher, stress fractures began to occur as the walls pushed outward. So, naturaly,
they built supports around the building and later additions continued as such.
At the end of the 18th century, during the French Revolution, many of the treasures
of the cathedral were either destroyed or plundered. The statues of biblical kings of Judea (erroneously thought to be kings of
France) were beheaded. Many of the heads were found during a 1977 excavation nearby and are on display at the Musée de Cluny. Only the great bells avoided being melted down, and the cathedral was dedicated first to
the Cult of Reason, and to the Cult of the
Supreme Being. The church interior was used as a warehouse for the storage of forage and food.
Construction
façade, detail of the Door of the Judgement
In 1160, having become the "parish church of the kings of Europe", Bishop Maurice de
Sully deemed the current Parisian cathedral unworthy of its lofty role, and had it demolished shortly after he assumed the
title of Bishop of Paris. According to legend, de Sully had a vision of a glorious
new cathedral for Paris, and sketched it in the dirt outside of the original church. To begin the construction, the bishop had
several houses demolished and had a new road built in order to transport materials for the new church.
Construction began in 1163, during the reign of Louis VII, and opinion differs as
to whether Maurice de Sully or Pope Alexander III laid the foundation stone of the
cathedral. However, both were at the ceremony in question. Bishop de Sully went on to devote most of his life and wealth to the
cathedral's construction.
Construction of the west front, with its distinctive two towers, began circa 1200, before the nave had been completed, contrary to normal construction practice. Over the construction period, numerous
architects worked on the site, as is evidenced by the differing styles at different heights of
the west front and towers. Between 1210 and 1220, the fourth architect oversaw the construction of the level with the rose window
and the great halls beneath the towers. The towers were completed around 1245, and the cathedral was completed around 1345.
Dimensions
- 41 m in width
- 43 m in height until the base of the turns
- 63 m at the top of the turns
Timeline of construction
- 1160 Maurice de Sully (named Bishop of Paris), orders the original cathedral
to be demolished.
- 1163 Cornerstone laid for Notre Dame de Paris — construction begins
- 1182 Apse and choir completed.
- 1196 Nave completed. Bishop de Sully dies.
- 1200 Work begins on western façade.
- 1225 Western façade completed.
- 1250 Western towers and north rose window completed
- 1250 – 1345 Remaining elements completed
During the Paris Commune in 1871, the cathedral was nearly burned by the
Communards — some accounts suggest that indeed a huge mound of chairs was set on fire in its
interior. Whatever happened, Notre Dame survived the Commune essentially unscathed.
The Organ
Though several organs were installed in the cathedral over time, the earliest ones were inadequate to the building. The first
noteworthy organ was finished in the early 1700s by the noted builder Clicquot. Some of Clicquot's
original pipework in the pedal division continues to sound from the organ today, almost 270 years after being installed. The
organ was almost completely rebuilt and expanded in the nineteenth century by Aristide
Cavaillé-Coll. The position of titular organist at Notre-Dame is considered as one of the most prestigious organist posts
in France, along with the titulaire post of Saint Sulpice in Paris,
Cavaillé-Coll's largest instrument. The organ has 7800 pipes with 900 classified as historical. The organ has 109 stops, five
56-key manuals and a 32-key pedalboard. In
December 1992 work was completed on the organ that fully computerized the organ under 3 LANs (Local Area Networks). Among the best-known organists at Notre Dame was Louis Vierne, who held this position from 1900 to 1937. Under his tenure, the Cavaillé-Coll organ was
modified in its tonal character, notably in 1902 and 1932. Pierre Cochereau initiated
further alterations (many of which were already planned by Louis Vierne), including the electrification of the action between
1959 and 1963 (the original Cavaillé-Coll console, which can still be seen at the organ loft as a tribute to Louis Vierne, was
replaced by a new console in Anglo-American style) and the addition of further stops between 1965 and 1972, notably in the pedal
division, the recomposition of the mixture stops, and finally the adding of three horizontal reed stops "en chamade". After Cochereau's sudden death in 1984, four new titular organists were appointed at Notre Dame
in 1985: Jean-Pierre Leguay, Olivier Latry, Yves Devernay (who died in 1990), and Philippe Lefévre. This was reminiscent of the
eighteenth century practice of the cathedral having four titular organists, each one playing for three months of the year.
Beginning in 1989, another restoration to the instrument was undertaken, which was completed in 1992.
Alterations, vandalism, and restorations
In 1548, rioting Huguenots damaged features of the cathedral following the Council of Trent. During the reign of Louis XIV and
Louis XV, at the end of the 17th century, the cathedral underwent major alterations
as part of an ongoing attempt to modernize cathedrals throughout Europe. Tombs and stained glass windows were destroyed. The
north and south rose windows were spared this fate, however.
In 1793 during the French Revolution, the cathedral was turned into a "Temple to Reason" and many of its treasures were destroyed or stolen. Several sculptures were smashed and
destroyed, and for a time Lady Liberty replaced the Virgin Mary on several altars. The
cathedral's great bells managed to avoid being melted down, but the cathedral was used as a warehouse for the storage of
food.
Sculpture from the restoration program
A restoration program was initiated in 1845, overseen by architects Jean-Baptiste-Antoine Lassus and Eugène Viollet-le-Duc.
The restoration lasted 25 years and included the construction of a flèche (a type of
spire) as well as the addition of the chimeras on the Galerie
des Chimères. Viollet le Duc always signed his work with a bat, the wing structure of which most resembles the gothic vault
(see Roquetaillade castle).
In 1871, a civil uprising leading to the establishment of the short-lived Paris Commune
nearly set fire to the cathedral, and some records suggest that a mound of chairs within the cathedral was set alight.
In 1939, It was feared that German bombers could destroy the window;' as a result, on September
11, 1939, they were removed. They were restored at the end of the war.
In 1991, a major program of maintenance and restoration was initiated, which was intended to last 10 years but was still in
progress as of 2005, the cleaning and restoration of old sculptures being an exceedingly delicate matter.
Significant events at Notre Dame
- 1185 — Heraclius of Caesarea
calls for the Third Crusade from the still-incomplete cathedral.
- 1239 — The Crown of Thorns placed in the
cathedral by St. Louis during the construction of Sainte-Chapelle.
- 1302 — Philip the Fair opens the first
States-General.
- December 16, 1431 — Henry VI of England is crowned King of France.
- November 7, 1455 — Isabelle Romée, the mother of Joan of Arc, petitions a papal
delegation to overturn her daughter's conviction for heresy.
- April 24, 1558 — Mary I of Scotland is married to the Dauphin François
(later François II of France), son of Henry II
of France.
- August 18, 1572 — Henry of Navarre (later Henry IV of France) marries
Marguerite de Valois.
- December 2, 1804 — After the anointing by
Pope Pius VII, Napoléon seizes the crown
from the pontiff and crowns himself emperor, then Joséphine.
- 1900 — Louis Vierne is chosen the official Notre
Dame organist after a heavy competition against the 500 most talented organ players of the era. He dies at the cathedral organ
(as was his life-long wish) on June 2, 1937.
- 1909 — Joan of Arc is beatified.
- May 16, 1920 — Joan of
Arc is canonized.
- August 26, 1944 — The Te
Deum Mass takes place in the cathedral to celebrate the liberation of Paris. (According to some accounts the Mass was interrupted by sniping from both the internal and external galleries.)
- November 12, 1970 — The Requiem Mass of General Charles de
Gaulle is held.
- May 31, 1980 — After the Magnificat of this day, Pope John Paul II celebrates Mass on the
parvis in front of the cathedral.
- January 1996 - The Requiem Mass of François Mitterrand, is held.
- August 10, 2007 - The Requiem Mass of Jean-Marie
Cardinal Lustiger, archbishop emeritus of Paris, is
held.
The cathedral is renowned for its Lent sermons founded by the famous Dominican Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire in the
1840s. In recent years however an increasing number have been given by leading public figures and state-employed academics. Many
of their audience however are foreigners and as such obliged to a devoir de réserve.
Miscellaneous trivia
- Under the 1905 French law on the separation
of Church and State, Notre Dame remains state property like all cathedrals built by the Kingdom of France, but its use is
granted to the Roman Catholic Church.
- France's "Point zéro", the reference point for distances along the highways starting
in Paris, is situated in the square in front of the cathedral. Tradition hold that tourists who stand on Point zéro will one day
return to Paris. A picture of Point zéro,
actually a stone in the ground
Notre Dame de Paris in the media
- During the early 19th century, the cathedral was in a state of disrepair, and city planners began to contemplate tearing it
down. French novelist Victor Hugo, an admirer of the cathedral, wrote his novel
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (titled in French Notre Dame de
Paris) in part to raise awareness of the cathedral's heritage, which sparked renewed interest in the cathedral's fate. A
campaign to collect funds to save the cathedral followed, culminating in the 1845 restorations.
- The cathedral was featured in the film Before Sunset.
- In the video game Onimusha 3: Demon
Siege, feudal era Japanese samurai Samanosuke Akechi visited Notre Dame and gained his second Oni-Weapon in this saga:
Kuugatou (Nodachi), after being flung into the future. However, the cathedral was infested with
demons and apparently underground is a complex filled with an arcane presence and
design.
- The videogame Timesplitters 2 contained a level set entirely within Notre
Dame, although it does not appear to scale or to have any elaborate architectural similarity.
- The cathedral can be built as a monument in Sim City 3000.
- The cathedral was featured in the film Amélie.
- The cathedral was featured in the film Van Helsing.
- The cathedral was featured in the Disney animated film The
Hunchback of Notre Dame, based on Victor Hugo's book.
Notre Dame de Paris is a prominent landmark on the Île de la Cité
See also
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References
- Jacobs, Jay, ed. The Horizon Book of Great Cathedrals. New York, New York: American Heritage Publishing, 1968.
- Janson, H.W. History of Art. 3rd Edition. New York, New York: Harry N. Abrams,
Inc., 1986.
- Myers, Bernard S. Art and Civilization. New York, New York: McGraw-Hill,
1957.
- Michelin Travel Publications. The Green Guide Paris. Hertfordshire, UK: Michelin Travel
Publications, 2003.
External links
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