It will run through the beginning of the Capetian dynasty to nowadays and will focus on everything related to France and its history.
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Loterie des enfants trouvés, 1674 - the theme of a swaddled Jesus to remember the life of the population was common in religious and artistic circles who offered charity in Paris in the middle of the 17th century. It is opposed to the sensual depiction of Jesus as a child in the more official classical art, inspired by the Renaissance.
Bibliothèque royale de Bruxelles, Belgique
In 1633 Vincent de Paul founded in Paris the Companie des Filles de la Charité, whose nuns dedicated themselves to the poors and lost children. In 1640 they received the royal charge to take care of any child found in the streets of Paris. Each year, 500 children were abandoned
Pied de Croix de Saint-Bertin, vers 1180 ©Musées de Saint-Omer
Cuivre doré, fondu, ciselé, gravé, émaux champlevés
Hauteur en cm 31.5, Diamètre de la base en cm. 22.5, Diamètre maximal en cm 29.5
Objet d’art
This foot cross comes from the former abbey of Saint Bertin, and until recently it was considered as a smaller copy of the cross Saint Suger ordered for Saint Denis. The foot should have been used for a huge cross.
The base is round, ornated around a disk by vegetal patterns, upon which the four evangelists are sitting and who are used to support the cross. You can recognise the evangelists by their symbols, placed above them, between the base and the squared column. Saint Luke is under a winged bull, writing over his desk. Saint Matthew stops writing and turns to face the angel coming towards him. Saint John is turning as well.
Cathédrale de Reims
Notre-Dame of Reims was the site of the coronation of French kings. It was the centre of an important “cathedral complex” and the representation of Heavenly Jerusalem for the people of the Middle Ages.
It was also the symbolic centre of the Archbishop’s power, as Primate over the bishops of several dioceses in Northern France.
Erected between 1211 and 1516, in accordance with an architectural program of immense artistic richness, the Cathedral of Reims survives as one of the most beautiful examples of Gothic art.
The architecture of the Reims Cathedral is characteristic of Gothic Art: it represents a moment of equilibrium between the experiments of Early Gothic (second half of the 12th century), and the decorative evolutions of Radiant Gothic (about 1230-1350) and Flamboyant Gothic (about 1350-1500).
The monument displays a classic unity to which the successive builders remained faithful, through the decades, by conserving as closely as possible the architectural vision adopted during the years 1210-1230 and the construction of the choir.
The interior elevation is remarkable for the impression of vertical tension created by the upward thrust and relative narrowness of its volumes (there is only one side-aisle).
The division into three levels is typical of 13th century architecture: grand arcades on the ground floor, triforium, and large, high windows.
To the three galleries of circulation habitual in similar edifices (two high: a parapet walk at the summit of the goutterot wallswith a passageway at the base of the high windows, a median, and the triforium); the Cathedral adds an interior passage at the base of the low windows: the “Passage Champenois”. Each of these passageways allows one to walk completely around the edifice.
Marriage of Tobias and Sara
This roundel originally came from the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris. This was built by Louis IX of France to house the Crown of Thorns, which Jesus Christ had worn at the time of his Crucifixion. The king acquired part of this priceless relic in 1238. The Sainte-Chapelle was begun in 1241 and dedicated in 1248. It has been described as a huge reliquary in stone. Architecture, sculpture and stained glass combine to produce an effect of astonishing richness. The vast glazing programme has suffered, however. During the first half of the 19th century much glass was removed and many panels were sold to private collectors. Fortunately, some have come into museum collections.
Originally, this medallion belonged to the window devoted to the Story of Tobias, on the south side. It shows Tobias and Sara being joined in marriage by Sara’s father, Raguel, who stands behind her. Taking his daughter’s right hand and putting it into the right hand of Tobias, he gives the couple his blessing.
The Book of Tobias recounts how Tobias’s son, also called Tobias, with the aid of the Archangel Raphael, was able to restore his father’s health and wealth. Raphael, in disguise, leads Tobias to the lands of his kinsman Raguel. Raguel gives his daughter Sara in marriage to Tobias, but warns him that Sara’s seven previous husbands had all been devoured by demons on the wedding night. With Raphael’s aid, Tobias prepares a potion, the smell of which drives out the demons. He and Sara are then able to consummate their marriage successfully.
The Catholic church considers the Book of Tobias (or Tobit) to be a canonical book of the Old Testament. The Protestant reformers in the first half of the 16th century considered it to be non-historical and thus non-authoritative. They removed it from their official new bibles and labelled it ‘Apocryphal’.
Marguerite Bourgeoys par Pierre le Ber
Marguerite Bourgeoys, C.N.D., was the French foundress of the Congregation of Notre Dame of Montreal in the colony of New France, now part of Canada. She lived in Fort Ville-Marie (now Montreal) as of 1653, educating young girls, the poor, and natives until her death at the turn of the 18th century. She is also significant for developing one of the first uncloistered religious communities in the Catholic Church. She has been declared asaint by the Catholic Church.
Sainte Cécile Cathedral, Albi, France, 1282-1390
Founding of the Jesuit order
On 15 August 1534, Ignatius of Loyola and six other students at the University of Paris met in Montmartre outside Paris, in a crypt beneath the church of Saint Denis, now Saint Pierre de Montmartre (image).
They called themselves the Company of Jesus, and also Amigos en El Señor or “Friends in the Lord”, because they felt “they were placed together by Christ”. The name had echoes of the military (as in an infantry “company”), as well as of discipleship (the “companions” of Jesus).
The word “company” comes ultimately from Latin, cum + pane = “with bread”, or a group that shares meals.
Madeleine,dite Madeleine pleurantAuteur :Henner Jean Jacques (1829-1905)
Portail de la cathédrale de Bourges - Le Jugement dernier
Bourges Cathedral is of considerable importance in the development of Gothic architecture and as a symbol of the strength of Christianity in medieval France. However, its principal claim lies in its striking beauty, combining masterly management of space with harmonious proportions and decoration of the highest quality. As the figurehead of the Capetian domain facing the south of France, the Cathedral of Saint-Étienne had to be unique in design. The architectural style chosen by the unknown master-builder is based on a plan with no transept and plastic effects of great modernity for their time. The cathedral is still surrounded by the half-timbered houses of the medieval town.
A royal city since the year 1100, Bourges has grown in size and prosperity; the new Gothic cathedral was a hymn to the authority of the Archbishops of Bourges, primates of Aquitaine.
There had been a Christian cult centre on this site since the 3rd century, when Roman Avaricum became the first Christian community in Gaul. A Romanesque basilica dedicated to St Stephen was erected there in the 11th century and other religious buildings quickly clustered around it. A small crypt from the Romanesque structure has survived beneath the present cathedral. In the 12th-century transepts and a monumental west front were added, but fires in the early 1190s necessitated complete rebuilding (contemporaneously with the main construction of Notre-Dame de Paris).
In 1195, Archbishop Henri de Sully decided to rebuild the cathedral, starting with the chevet, in the new Gothic style: work began and continued throughout the 13th century. The new cathedral was built to a simple but harmonious plan. It is basilical in form, with chapels surrounding the nave. The cathedral has a very simple plan, with double side aisles, a double ambulatory, and no transept. The perspective of the side walls and the unity of the interior space are outstanding features of the building. The architectural features of the whole edifice are already visible in the chevet: the pyramidal composition of the elevation and the audacious double flying buttresses, which are intended to create effects of perspective and harmony of volumes inside the edifice.
In 1199, Archbishop Guillaume de Dangeon, a former Cistercian abbot, succeeded Henri de Sully and played an important part in the development of the site and in the definition of the iconographical programme: the cathedral as a whole, its carved decorations and the stained-glass windows, which are the assertion of religious doctrine against heresy. The second stage of construction, including the nave and the west front, was finished around 1230; five carved portals completed the facade. The architects who succeeded the first master-builder maintained the coherence and the apparent simplicity of the programme, the absence of a transept contributing to the effect of unity of space.
In the early 13th century, stained-glass windows were added to the three levels of the choir: they represent the Christ of the Last Judgement and the Apocalypse, the Blessed Virgin and Saint Étienne are flanked by the trade guilds, parallel scenes from the New and Old Testaments, the life of the Saints and Martyrs, the Archbishops of Bourges, the Prophets and Apostles.
The tympanum of the central portal of the west facade is bears a grandiose sculptural representation of the Last Judgement that is both realistic and timeless, in which Hell swarms with demons and creatures in the torments of despair. The sculptures on the north and south doors and the Last Judgement on the west facade are notable examples of the art of the period.
Other historic buildings in the precincts are a 13th-century tithe barn, those elements of the 17th-century Bishop’s Palace which survive as the Hôtel de Ville and the cathedral gardens in classical French style. The structure is essentially as it was when it was completed in the late 13th century, both in form and materials, although many elements have been replaced over the centuries, as is the case with all Gothic cathedrals.
Source: UNESCO/CLT/WHC
Tour de Constance in Aigues Mortes
Louis IX of France (Saint Louis) rebuilt the port of Aigues Mortes in the 13th century as France’s only Mediterranean port at that time. It was the embarkation point of the Seventh Crusade (1248) and the Eighth Crusade (1270).
The 1,650 meters of city walls were built in two phases: the first during the reign of Philippe III the Bold and the second during the reign of Philippe IV the Fair, who had the enclosure completed between 1289 and 1300. The Constance Tower, completed in 1248, is all that remains of the castle built in Louis IX’s reign. It was designed to be impregnable with six-meter-thick walls. A spiral staircase leads to the different levels of the tower.
From 1575 to 1622, Aigues-Mortes was one of the eight safe havens granted to the Protestants. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 caused severe repression of Protestantism, which was marked in Languedoc and the Cévennes in the early 18th century by the “Camisard War”. Like other towers in the town, from 1686 onwards, the Constance Tower was used as a prison for the Huguenots who refused to convert to Roman Catholicism. In 1703, Abraham Mazel, leader of the Camisards, managed to escape with sixteen companions.
