Notre Dame de Paris

Notre Dame de Paris (French for "Our Lady of Paris", meaning the church in Paris dedicated to Mary, the mother of Jesus), often 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. While a major tourist destination, it is still used as a Roman Catholic cathedral (archbishopric of Paris). Notre Dame de Paris is widely considered the finest example of French gothic architecture.

Features

The Western Facade

The Western Facade of the cathedral is the single most well-known feature. It is divided into three distinct levels, a holdover from Romanesque architecture. The image to the right indicates some of the west front's most significant features.

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• The South Tower houses the cathedral's famous bell, "Emmanuel". The bell is Notre-Dame's oldest, having been recast in 1631.
• The Galerie des Chimères, or Grand Gallery, connects the two towers and is where the cathedral's legendary gargoyles (chimères) can be found.
• The West Rose Window is 10 metres in diameter. Many of the elements of the stained glass window date back to the 13th-century construction of the cathedral. In front of the window stands a statue of the Virgin Mary carrying the Baby Jesus.
• The King's Gallery is a line of statues of the 28 Kings of Judah and Israel, which was redesigned by Viollet-le-Duc to replace the statues destroyed during the French Revolution. The revolutionaries believed the statues to represent the French kings, and decapitated them.
• The three Portals of the west front depict scenes from the life of the Virgin Mary (Portal to the Virgin), Christ enthroned judging the living and dead including The Ten Virgins (Portal of the Last Judgement), and scenes from the life of the Virgin Mary's mother (Portal to Saint Anne).

The North and South Rose Windows

The two transept windows of Notre Dame were built between 1250 and 1260, and were designed in the style of the High Gothic period. This is evident by how they sit flush with the wall rather than being recessed, unlike the rose window on the Western Facade which was built during the Early Gothic period. The South Rose Window depicts the Triumph of Christ along with scenes from the New Testament.

Related Topics:
High Gothic - Early Gothic

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The rose windows are notable for being one of the few stained glass windows in the cathedral, and indeed in all of Europe, that still have their original glasswork.

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Art Inside the Cathedral

The cathedral displays a sculpture of the Virgin Mary known as the Virgin of Paris. Commissioned during a time of great wealth by local merchants who saw the cathedral as a source of civic pride and a symbol of new economic freedom, the sculpture is noted for its decadent display and lavishly expensive decoration. While not heretical, some observers have noted that the sculpture is more a symbol of arrogant wealth than piety.

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