What associations come to your mind when you hear “Notre-Dame de Paris”?) For me - the Cathedral, Paris, Quasimodo, Belle and Slava Petkun)) In fact, there are many more associations for this place - after all, this is the main attraction of Paris, along with with the famous Eiffel Tower!
Notre Dame Cathedral- the geographical and spiritual “heart” of Paris, built in the western part of the Ile de la Cité, on the site where in the 1st century AD there was an ancient Roman altar dedicated to Jupiter. Among the Gothic churches of France, Notre Dame Cathedral stands out for the austere grandeur of its appearance. In terms of beauty, proportions, and the degree to which the idea of Gothic art is embodied, this cathedral is a unique phenomenon. Today, looking at its holistic and harmonious ensemble, it is impossible to believe that the cathedral took almost two hundred years to build, that it was remodeled and thoroughly restored many times.
Construction began in 1163, under Louis VII of France. Historians disagree about who exactly laid the first stone in the foundation of the cathedral - Bishop Maurice de Sully or Pope Alexander III. The main altar of the cathedral was consecrated in May 1182, by 1196 the nave of the building was almost completed, work continued only on the main facade. By 1250, the construction of the cathedral was largely completed, and in 1315 the interior decoration was also completed.
Construction of the west gable, with its distinctive two towers, began around 1200.
The main creators of Notre Dame are considered to be two architects - Jean de Chelles, who worked from 1250 to 1265, and Pierre de Montreuil, who worked from 1250 to 1267.
During the construction of the cathedral, many different architects took part in it, as evidenced by the different styles and different heights of the western side and towers. The towers were completed in 1245 and the entire cathedral in 1345.
The powerful and majestic facade is divided vertically into three parts by pilasters, and horizontally into three tiers by galleries, while the lower tier, in turn, has three deep portals. Above them is an arcade (Gallery of Kings) with twenty-eight statues representing the kings of ancient Judea.
The cathedral, with its magnificent interior decoration, served for many centuries as the venue for royal weddings, imperial coronations and national funerals. In 1302, the States General, the first parliament of France, met there for the first time.
A thanksgiving service was held here for Charles VII, who was crowned in Reims. And a century and a half later, the wedding of Henry IV, who was the king of Navarre, and the sister of the French king Marguerite Valois took place.
As in other Gothic churches, there is no wall painting, and the only source of color is the numerous stained glass windows of the tall lancet windows.
During the time of Louis XIV, at the end of the 17th century, the cathedral experienced serious changes: the graves and stained glass windows were destroyed.
During the Great French Revolution, at the end of the 18th century, one of the first decrees of Robespierre declared that if the Parisians do not want “the stronghold of obscurantism to be demolished,” then they must pay a bribe to the Convention “for the needs of all revolutions that will occur with our help.” in other countries".
The cathedral was declared the Temple of Reason.
The cathedral was returned to the church and re-consecrated in 1802, under Napoleon.
Restoration began in 1841 under the direction of the architect Viollet-le-Duc. This famous Parisian restorer also worked on the restoration of Amiens Cathedral, the Carcassonne fortress in the south of France and the Gothic church of Sainte-Chapelle. Restoring the building and sculptures, replacing broken statues and constructing the famous spire took 23 years. Viollet-le-Duc also came up with the idea of a gallery of chimeras on the façade of the cathedral. The statues of chimeras are installed on the upper platform at the foot of the towers.
During these same years, buildings adjacent to the cathedral were demolished, resulting in the formation of the current square in front of its façade.
Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris houses one of the great relics of Christianity - the Crown of Thorns of Jesus Christ. Until 1063, the Crown of Thorns was kept on Mount Zion in Jerusalem. In 1063 it was transported to the palace of the Byzantine emperors in Constantinople. In 1204, the sacred relic was captured by Western European crusading knights who burst into Constantinople and plundered the Christian city. Before this, for a thousand years the conqueror had not set foot on the stones of the streets of Constantinople. Under the attacks of the crusaders, the Byzantine Empire fell apart into several parts. Constantinople found itself under the rule of a dynasty of some provincial princes, who insatiably plundered the remnants of the great heritage they had inherited, but were still constantly in need of money. One of them, Baldwin II, began selling sacred relics of Christianity to get out of debt. As a result, the Crown of Thorns went to the French King Louis IX. On August 18, 1239, the king brought it into the Notre Dame de Paris. In 1243-1248, the Sainte-Chapelle was built at the royal palace on the Ile de la Cité to store the Crown of Thorns, which was located here until the French Revolution, when crowds of revolutionary-minded citizens, intoxicated by “freedom, equality and fraternity,” tore the chapel to pieces. However, the Crown of Thorns was saved and in 1809 was transferred for storage to Notre Dame Cathedral, where it continues to be located for almost two centuries.
The cathedral reveals a duality of stylistic influences: on the one hand, there are echoes of the Romanesque style of Normandy with its characteristic powerful and dense unity, and on the other, innovative architectural achievements of the Gothic style are used, which give the building lightness and create the impression of simplicity of the vertical structure. The height of the cathedral is 35 m, length is 130 m, width is 48 m, the height of the bell towers is 69 m, the weight of the Emmanuel bell in the eastern tower is 13 tons, its tongue is 500 kg.
The main facade of the cathedral has three doors. Above the three pointed portals of the entrances are sculptural panels with various episodes from the Gospel.
Above the central entrance there is an image of the Last Judgment. Seven statues each support the entrance arches. In the center is Christ the Judge. The lower lintel depicts the dead rising from their graves. They were awakened by two angels with trumpets. Among the dead are one king, one pope, warriors and women (symbolizing the presence of all mankind at the Last Judgment). On the upper tympanum there is Christ and two angels on both sides.
The doors are decorated with forged reliefs. The roof of the cathedral is made of 5 mm thick lead tiles laid in overlapping layers, and the entire roof weighs 210 tons.
The upper part of the cathedral is decorated with images of gargoyles (the protruding ends of beams decorated with the faces of fantastic creatures) and chimeras (these are individual statues of fantastic creatures).
In the Middle Ages there were no chimeras at the cathedral. It was the restorer, the architect Viollet-le-Duc, who came up with the idea of installing them, using medieval gargoyles as a model. They were performed by fifteen sculptors, led by Geoffroy Deshaume.
The cathedral's oak, lead-covered spire is 96 meters high. The base of the spire is surrounded by four groups of bronze statues of the apostles. In front of each group is an animal, a symbol of the evangelist: a lion - a symbol of Mark, a bull - Luke, an eagle - John and an angel - Matthew. All the statues look towards Paris, except St. Thomas, the patron saint of architects, who faces the spire.
A significant part of the stained glass windows was made in the middle of the 19th century. The main stained glass window - the rose above the entrance to the cathedral - is partially original, preserved from the Middle Ages (9.6 meters in diameter). In its center is the Mother of God, around are seasonal agricultural work, zodiac signs, virtues and sins. Two side roses on the northern and southern facades of the cathedral in both transepts are 13 meters in diameter (the largest in Europe). During the restoration, the stained glass windows were initially supposed to be white, but Prosper Merimee insisted that they be made similar to the medieval ones.
Unfortunately, among the stained glass windows of Notre Dame Cathedral, very few are authentic. Almost all of them are later works that replaced stained glass windows that had been broken and damaged over a long history. Only the rose window has survived intact to this day. But not only the stained glass windows, but also the cathedral itself may not have survived to this day: the Masonic leaders of the French Revolution and the crowd they led aroused particular anger at the Church of Our Lady, and since the bacchanalia raged with particular force in Paris, the Cathedral of Notre Dame suffered. significantly larger than other cathedrals in France. Severely damaged during the years of the revolution, the ancient building fell into disrepair from the end of the 18th century and in those years when Victor Hugo wrote his famous novel “Notre Dame Cathedral”, the temple was already threatened with complete destruction.
Inside the cathedral, transepts (transverse naves), intersecting with the main longitudinal one, form a cross in plan, but in Notre Dame the transepts are somewhat wider than the nave itself. In the center of the long nave is a successive series of sculptural scenes from the Gospel.
In the chapels located on the right side of the cathedral there are paintings and sculptures by various artists, which, according to a centuries-old tradition, are presented to the cathedral as a gift annually on the first day of May.
The cathedral's chandelier (chandelier) is made of silvered bronze according to a design by Violet Le Duc, replacing the one melted down in 1792. In the photo - the ceiling Notre Dame Cathedral
The first large organ was installed in the cathedral in 1402. For these purposes, an old organ was used, placed in a new Gothic building. Such an instrument could not give voice to the huge space of the cathedral, so in 1730 François-Henri Clicquot completed its completion. The instrument consisted of 46 registers located on five manuals. During its construction, most of the original instrument's pipes were used, 12 of which survive to this day. The organ also acquired its current building with a façade in the Louis XVI style.
In 1864-67, the leading French organ builder of the 19th century, Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, carried out a complete reconstruction of the organ. The baroque instrument acquired the romantic sound typical of Cavaillé-Coll. The number of registers was increased to 86, the mechanical structure was equipped with a Barker lever. Among a number of other composers, Cesar Frank and Camille Saint-Saëns played on this organ. The position of titular organist of the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, along with the position of organist of the Cathedral of St. Sulpice, is considered one of the most prestigious in France. From 1900 to 1937, this post was held by Louis Vierne, under whom the instrument was expanded in 1902 and 1932, and its structure was replaced with an electro-pneumatic one. In 1959, the Cavaillé-Coll console was replaced with a console traditional for American organs, and the structure became completely electric, using more than 700 km of copper cable. However, the complexity and archaic nature of such a design, as well as frequent failures, led to the fact that during the next reconstruction of the organ in 1992, the control of the instrument was computerized, and the copper cable was replaced by fiber optics.
The organ currently has 109 stops and approximately 7,800 pipes, approximately 900 of which are from a Clicquot instrument. In 1985, four titular organists were appointed, each of whom, according to the tradition of the 18th century, conducts services for three months a year.
The architecture combines two styles: Romanesque and Gothic. We see echoes of the Romanesque style, first of all, in three portals with sculptural images of episodes from the Gospel. Gothic lightness, aspiration upward, towards the sky, personifies the idea of the monarchy and at the same time makes the cathedral stunningly beautiful. As expected, the cathedral stretches from west to east for a length of 130 meters, its height is 35 meters, and the height of the bell towers is 69 meters.
The famous western façade of the building is divided into three tiers: The lower tier is represented by three portals: the Last Judgment scene (with the image of Christ in the center), the Madonna and Child and St. Anne. The middle tier is the gallery of kings with 28 statues (destroyed during the French Revolution) and an openwork window - a 13th-century rose, striking the viewer with its radiance in the center of the tier above the pointed arches of the recessed portals. The upper tier is towers, 69 meters high. The upper part of the cathedral is decorated with images of chimeras, which did not exist during the Middle Ages. These night demons are considered the guardians of the cathedral. For a long time it was believed that at night they come to life and bypass the protected object. But according to the creators, chimeras are associated with human characters. There is a legend that if you look at monsters in the twilight for a long time, they will “come to life.” But if you take a photo next to a chimera, the person will seem like a statue. The most famous of these monsters is considered to be the half-woman, half-bird Strix (la Stryge) (from the Greek strigx, that is, “night bird”), who, according to myths, kidnapped babies and fed on their blood. The gargoyles present in the cathedral are designed to drain rainwater (drainpipes). And they were a sculptural decoration of the cathedral in the Middle Ages.
Each bell on the towers has a name. The oldest of them is Belle (1631), the largest is Emmanuel. It weighs 13 tons, and its “tongue” is 500 kg. It is tuned to F sharp. These bells are used in special ceremonies, while the rest are rung daily. There are 387 steps leading to the top of one of the towers.
The sculpture of the left portal “Glory of the Blessed Virgin”, where the Madonna and Child sits on a throne, flanked by two angels, a bishop with an assistant and a king, is worthy of special attention. In the upper part of the work you will see scenes of the Annunciation, Nativity, Adoration of the Magi, and the lower part of the image is dedicated to stories from the lives of Anna and Joseph.
The structure is a five-nave basilica. The naves, intersecting, form a cross, as it should be in the plan of a Christian cathedral. The stained glass windows give the cathedral extraordinary beauty, thanks to which the gray walls of the building are painted in all the colors of the rainbow when exposed to sunlight. Three round rose windows are located on the western, southern and northern facades, on which you will see scenes from the Old Testament. The main stained glass window, located on the western portal, has a diameter of 9.6 meters. In the center is an image of the Mother of God, and around her are scenes of work on earth, signs of the zodiac, virtues and sins. The side roses, northern and southern, have a diameter of 13 meters.
The chapels located on the right side of the cathedral attract attention with paintings and sculptures, which are gifts to the cathedral, brought, according to tradition, on the first day of May.
The cathedral's chandelier is made of silvered bronze according to sketches by Viollet-le-Duc.
The treasury of the cathedral contains the crown of thorns of Jesus Christ, brought from Jerusalem to Constantinople, pawned in Venice and redeemed by Louis IX.
The cathedral is divided into three parts by pilasters vertically and into three stripes horizontally. In the lower part, three grandiose portals open: the portal of the Blessed Virgin, the portal of the Last Judgment, and the portal of St. Anne.
On the left is the portal of the Blessed Virgin, depicting the ark with tablets and the coronation of the Virgin Mary. On the dividing pilaster there is a modern image of the Madonna and Child. In the lunettes in the upper part there are subjects of death, communion with heavenly bliss and the Ascension of the Mother of God. The lower frieze of the portal represents scenes from her life.
In the center is the portal of the Last Judgment. The pilaster dividing it depicts Christ, and on the vault of the arch the sculptor with great skill sculpted images of the Heavenly Judges, Heaven and Hell. The lunette is decorated with figures of Christ, the Mother of God and John the Baptist.
Below, on one side, stand the righteous who deserve salvation, on the other, sinners who are carried away to eternal torment. On the dividing pilaster of the third portal of St. Anne is a statue of the 5th century Parisian bishop St. Marcello. The lunette is occupied by a Madonna between two angels, and on the sides are images of Maurice de Sully and King Louis VII. Below you can see scenes from the life of St. Anne (Mother Mary) and Christ.
Perhaps, first of all, the eye stops at the central portal, representing “Judgment Day”. The lower frieze is a continuous movement of the dead rising from their graves, while in the upper part sits Christ, who administers the Last Judgment. He sends people on his right hand to heaven, while sinners on his left hand are doomed to terrible torment in hell.
Above the main entrance there is a huge round lace window - a rose from 1220-25. with a diameter of about ten meters and statues of the Madonna and Child and angels. On both sides of the rose there are windows separated by a column. The upper part is a gallery of arches connecting two towers, which in turn are equipped with high windows with columns. The gallery is crowned with statues depicting fantastic birds, monsters and demons, made according to the drawings of Viollet-le-Duc. Climbing 387 steps to the bell tower, you can admire the beautiful panorama of the city below.
It is curious that among the depicted sinners there are people similar to bishops and monarchs, which means that medieval masters had the opportunity to criticize the powers that be. The craftsmen also had a sense of humor: around the arch of the portal there are depictions of playful, playful angels, the models for which, as they say, were boys from the church choir.
Among their most cherished desires, many earthlings name a trip to Paris - one of the most romantic cities on the planet. When planning a route around the legendary French capital and its environs, foreign tourists plan to visit at least a dozen “must-see” attractions. Among them are the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre, the Champs Elysees, Versailles and the Arc de Triomphe, Place de la Bastille, Montmartre and the Moulin Rouge cabaret. But the most visited site in Paris for centuries has been Notre Dame Cathedral, also known as Notre Dame. More than 13 million tourists come to see it every year.
The majestic French Catholic church, where pompous prayer services, imperial coronations, royal weddings and spectacular funeral services for deceased crowned persons were held, has a rich history and a complex fate.
The structure was repeatedly subjected to destruction and reconstruction, and more than once there was a real threat of its complete destruction and oblivion. The fact that this magnificent cathedral still exists and functions is a great credit to Victor Hugo. The famous French writer and playwright, in love with his homeland, described the colorful temple in his novel of the same name, “Notre Dame Cathedral,” in 1831.
This romantic work with a tragic ending has become incredibly popular. The book was translated into dozens of languages, and theatrical productions, film adaptations and spectacular musicals were later created on its basis. Thousands of tourists, inspired by the poetic description of Paris and deeply touched by the sad fate of the beautiful Esmeralda, flocked to the French capital to see with their own eyes the cathedral, where the dramatic events created by Hugo’s rich imagination took place.
These days, the French musical “Notre Dame de Paris” has gained extraordinary popularity, which debuted in 1998 and was included in the Guinness Book of Records as the most successful musical performance. Over the next 12 years, 10 foreign productions of the musical Notre-Dame de Paris were created, including in Europe, the USA, Russia and Korea. To appreciate this amazing piece of music, listen to one of the most famous singles in the entire history of France - the song “Belle”, dedicated to the main characters of the novel.
NOTRE-DAME DE PARIS: CONSTRUCTION OVER 2 CENTURIES
The official date for the start of construction of the legendary temple is 1163. It was then that the first stone was laid in the foundation of the future majestic structure.
Construction work lasted more than 180 years - the huge cathedral acquired its final appearance only in 1345. During construction, the interior spaces were actively used as they were ready. At the main altar, consecrated back in 1182, prayer services, coronations, weddings and funerals were held, and in one of the luxurious halls a meeting of the first parliament of France was held in 1302.
Several architects worked on the temple project over two centuries, which explains its rich and varied architecture and decoration. Money for construction was collected “by the whole world”; every Parisian wanted to have a hand in the construction of God’s temple. Those who contributed large sums could expect to be buried inside the chapels, as well as have their statue displayed in the cathedral.
For a long time, Notre Dame Cathedral remained the decoration and main religious center of all of France. But church services were not only held here. Since the temple was considered the safest place in the city, the rich brought their savings here for safekeeping. The cathedral cordially opened its doors not only to those in power, but also to the poor - pilgrims and local beggars could always count on temporary shelter within the walls of the mighty sanctuary. The high 69-meter bell tower played the role of a watchtower from which the approaches to the city were monitored.
However, starting from the seventeenth century, the cathedral had to go through difficult times. During the reign of Louis XIV, stained glass windows and graves were partially destroyed. The French Revolution (1789-1799) became even more destructive for the centuries-old temple. The rioters plundered the cathedral, dismantled the spiers and, on the orders of their leader, Maximilian Robespierre, desecrated the chiseled statues. Sculptures of French kings were beheaded and thrown from the gallery, graves were destroyed, bells were melted, and statues of the Virgin Mary on the altar were replaced by a sculpture of the Goddess of Liberty. But everything could have ended even more tragically, since the rebels initially planned to blow up the cathedral, but agreed to preserve the building on the condition that the Parisians would pay for the needs of the revolution. The sanctuary was declared the Temple of Reason and turned into... a wine warehouse.
Only in 1802 was the looted cathedral returned to the fold of the church. The condition of God's temple was so deplorable that during the coronation of Napoleon (1804), the once luxurious halls had to be draped with fabric to hide their terrible condition.
Over the next three decades, Notre-Dame de Paris slowly collapsed and fell into disrepair. It was only after the publication of Hugo’s novel that attention was paid to the building again. In 1841-1846. A large-scale restoration was carried out, during which not only the destroyed objects were restored, but also new elements appeared: statues, a spire, a gallery of chimeras.
ARCHITECTURE OF NOTRE DAME DE PARIS - A MASTERPIECE SYMBIOSIS OF ROMANESK AND GOTHIC STYLES
The architects of the main Christian church in Paris managed to harmoniously combine two styles - Romanesque and Gothic. Thanks to this duality, the cathedral has a recognizable unique appearance, which was preserved during the latest restoration work.
Modern Notre Dame de Paris is a huge building 130 m long, 35 m high (towers - 36 m) and 50 m wide. At the same time, the temple can accommodate more than 9 thousand people.
One of the main decorations of the cathedral is the colored stained glass windows that replace the walls. This is where the largest stained glass panels in Europe are located (the diameter of the central stained glass window is 9.6 m). The temple houses unique Christian relics; the most valuable shrine is the crown of thorns of Jesus Christ.
The famous French cathedral is a visually spectacular Bible. On the walls of the temple and inside the building, with the help of sculptures and paintings, the entire history of Christianity is depicted - from the moment of the Fall to the Last Judgment. It’s worth coming here both to offer your prayers to God and to simply walk through the majestic structure to the mesmerizing sounds of the organ.
The symbol of Paris is now the Eiffel Tower, but the “heart” of Paris is the famous Notre Dame Cathedral, Notre Dame de Paris. It was with him that we began our acquaintance with the French capital.
The cathedral, 35 meters high, stands on the Seine River on the Ile de la Cité. It stands in a majestic bulk in the center of the city, the height of most of the houses in which is about 20 meters.
Notre-Dame de Paris was built in just under 2 centuries, from 1163 to 1345, although its main altar was consecrated already in 1182.
The portals of the cathedral are richly decorated with sculptures on biblical subjects.
The Last Judgment is depicted at the central entrance to Notre-Dame de Paris.
From the side the cathedral looks quite stern. On the top sit gargoyles that have turned green with time, and the stained glass windows of the cathedral from the outside look like dirty windows, and even behind bars.
Stained glass windows located high up are no longer so protected and look delicate. By the way, from the inside of the cathedral they look simply magnificent! But more on that below.
Behind Notre Dame Cathedral there is a small park.
In the center of the park is a statue of Our Lady.
This park is worth visiting if only to see the back of the cathedral.
It is significantly different from the front facade that most tourists look at.
For example, this spire is not visible from the square in front of the cathedral.
Let's go back. On the banks of the Seine in front of Notre Dame Cathedral stands a monument to Charlemagne.
We go inside the cathedral. He's impressive. They say that the cathedral was built in such a way that it could accommodate all 10,000 inhabitants of medieval Paris.
The cathedral is active. We came to the end of the service. By the way, tourists are not prohibited from filming in the Cathedral. They just ask you to do it without flash, so as not to disturb anyone.
And here are the legendary stained glass windows of Notre Dame de Paris.
Entrance to the cathedral is free, but there is a treasury in it, the entrance to which requires a fee.
Various relics, valuables, fragments of relics and especially expensive church items are collected here.
An interesting Catholic tradition is to install a Nativity scene in churches.
In the center, as it should be, is a stable with the baby Jesus and the wise men with gifts.
A separate part of Notre Dame Cathedral is intended more for tourists. For example, there is a model of a cathedral.
Anyone can light a candle here. The candles are right in the boxes with the cost of the candle written on them. You take it, put the coin in the box, and put a candle on it.
There is also an Orthodox icon in Notre-Dame de Paris, donated to the cathedral by the Metropolitan of Moscow and All Rus', Alexy II.
You can climb the towers of the cathedral and the famous gallery of chimeras. To do this, you really have to stand in line under the walls, looking at the hanging gargoyles.
The queue moves slowly, since the staircase to the towers of the cathedral is very narrow and in one of the places it is necessary to go up and down the same staircase on which two people cannot pass each other.
But if time and health permit, it’s worth going upstairs.
Even in cloudy weather, a very interesting view opens up from here.
It is so high that the top is lost in the clouds.
The Seine River embankment, included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
The hill of Montmartre with the Sacré-Coeur basilica is lost in the fog.
The cathedral has many statues of fantastic animals - chimeras.
Some of them look at the city as if they are terribly worried about what is happening in Paris.
Others look at the angel, waiting for him to start trumpeting.
Chimeras were installed on the cathedral in the mid-19th century, during the reconstruction of Notre-Dame de Paris.
At the foot of the spire are bronze figures of the apostles, greened with time.
And below, as far as visibility is clear, is Paris...
2015, Mochalov Artyom
Notre Dame Cathedral was built on the site where an ancient Roman temple once stood, and later a Christian basilica. This cathedral is the personification of classical Gothic, striking with its grandeur, wealth, beauty of the main facade and the lightness of the openwork flying buttresses made on the eastern side. The majestic and beautiful Notre Dame Cathedral has played the role of the “heart” of the capital of France for many centuries. Imperial coronations and national funerals were held here. In 1429, a thanksgiving service took place after Charles VII was crowned in Reims. French kings and queens were married in this cathedral, in particular, Henry IV and Margaret de Valois.
Construction of Notre-Dame de Paris began in 1163 during the reign of Louis VII of France. Historians disagree on who has the honor of laying the first stone in the foundation of the cathedral - Bishop Maurice de Sully or Pope Alexander III. What is known for certain is that previously there was a Halo-Roman temple to Jupiter on this site, and later the Basilica of St. Stephen. Construction took 182 years and was completed in 1345.
The building has the traditional shape of an elongated cross for Catholic cathedrals. The start of construction occurred at a time when Gothic was just coming into its own as a style in architecture, therefore, despite the dominance of the vertical, the horizontal still successfully competes with it. Thanks to this, incomparable clarity can be seen throughout the entire appearance of the building. The main facade with the proud height of the towers is powerful and at the same time elegant. It is horizontally divided into three tiers by galleries. In the lower tier there are three portals - the Virgin Mary, the Last Judgment and St. Anne. Between the lower and middle tier with the main rose stained glass window is the Gallery of the Kings, which consists of 28 statues of kings from the Old Testament.
The original appearance of Notre Dame was distorted by time and endless wars that brought destruction. In particular, under Louis XIV, graves and stained glass windows were destroyed, and during the Great French Revolution, on the orders of Robespierre, statues depicting French kings were beheaded. It later turned out that a Parisian bought them, allegedly planning to use them as building material. In fact, the new owner hid the statues under his house, where they were discovered in 1977.
From 1844 to 1861, the architect Viollet-le-Duc carried out the restoration of the temple. In addition to the standard bay windows, arches and colonnades for medieval basilicas, he supplemented the building with many sculptures of demons, chimeras, monsters, strange birds, grotesque figures of evil monsters, which, looking out from the most unexpected places of the facade, ironically contemplate the city from above. It seems that these stone sculptures, perched on a Gothic pinnacle, hanging over a wall ledge, or hidden behind a spire, have existed for an eternity, immersed in their thoughts about the fate of people swarming far below. In particular, medieval gargoyles served as the prototype for chimeras. Viollet-le-Duc involved 15 sculptors, led by Geoffroy Deshaume, to create the sculptures.
During the restoration, the cathedral also received a new oak, lead-clad spire, the height of which was 96 meters. Its predecessor was dismantled in 1786. At the foot of the spire there are four sculptural groups by Deshmo. In addition to the bronze statues of the apostles, each group contains an animal symbolizing one of the evangelists. Therefore, next to Saint Mark there is a lion, Luke - a bull, John - an eagle, and near Saint Matthew - an angel. The faces of all the statues are turned towards Paris, except for Thomas, who looks at the spire, probably for the reason that this saint is the patron saint of architects.
One of the most notable features of Notre-Dame de Paris is its stained glass windows. In addition to its direct purpose - to provide natural light in the cathedral, stained glass windows complement the interior decoration, thus replacing wall paintings. Most of the stained glass windows were created in the mid-19th century during reconstruction. Interestingly, they were originally supposed to be assembled from transparent glass. But the famous French writer Prosper Merimee, who at that time was the chief inspector of historical monuments in France, insisted that they be made similar to the medieval ones, that is, multi-colored. As for the stained glass window above the main entrance, it was quite well preserved from the Middle Ages, so it was restored, partially replacing the missing elements. In the center of the rose is the Mother of God, and on the “petals” are depicted all sorts of scenes from the everyday life of peasants, virtues and vices, and signs of the zodiac. The diameter of the main stained glass window is 9.6 meters, and the two side roses are 13 meters, making them the largest in Europe.
Notre Dame Cathedral is famous for its bells. The largest of them sounds in F-sharp tone, but it is used extremely rarely. Four other bells, each with its own name (Denise David (F-sharp), Hyacinthe Jeanne (F), Antoinette Charlotte (D-sharp) and Angelique Francoise (C-sharp)) delight Parisians and guests of the French capital twice a day - at 8 and 19 o'clock.
Notre-Dame de Paris houses a magnificent organ. The cathedral received the first such instrument in 1402. To do this, the old organ was placed in the new Gothic building. Subsequently, the instrument was rebuilt and reconstructed many times. Thierry made a significant contribution to the improvement of the organ in 1733, after which the instrument already had 46 registers, located on five manuals. In addition, the organ was placed in a new building, the facade of which was made in the style of Louis XVI. The next important restoration was carried out in 1788 by François-Henri Clicquot.
Under the leadership of the outstanding French organ builder Aritide Cavaillé-Coll, a complete modernization of the instrument took place in 1864-1867. As a result, the organ received 86 registers and a mechanical structure equipped with Barker levers. In addition, the sound has changed somewhat, which has acquired the softness traditional for Cavaillé-Coll instruments.
From 1902 to 1932, the instrument was once again expanded, and the tractor was replaced with an electro-pneumatic one. The initiator of the innovations was Louis Vierne, who from 1900 to 1937 served as titular organist of Notre Dame Cathedral.
During the reconstruction of 1959, the organ’s console was replaced with an American one, and the tracquet with an electric one. About 700 km of cable were used for the latest improvement. However, the system turned out to be unreliable and often broke down, as a result of which in 1992 the copper cable was replaced with an optical one, and the console was computerized. Today the organ is the largest in terms of the number of registers (111). It consists of 8,000 pipes, more than 900 of which were installed during the time of Thierry and Clicquot.
The titular position of organist of Notre-Dame de Paris, which is one of the most prestigious in France, is now occupied by three musicians: Philippe Lefebvre, Olivier Latry, Jean-Pierre Legue.
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