Tourist attractions in Paris : La Sainte-Chapelle
La Sainte-Chapelle (The Holy Chapel) is a royal medieval Gothic chapel, located near the Conciergerie , on the Île de la Cité (the island in the river Seine) in the center of Paris. It is a prime example of the phase of Gothic architectural style called Rayonnant period (between c. 1240 and 1350), marked by its sense of weightlessness and strong vertical emphasis. Although damaged during the French revolution, and restored in the 19th century, it retains one of the most extensive in-situ collections of 13th-century stained glass anywhere in the world.
Its erection was commissioned by King Louis IX of France to house his collection of Passion Relics, including Christ's Crown of Thorns ; It was one of the instruments of the Passion woven of thorn branches and placed on Jesus Christ during the events leading up to his crucifixion and was one of the most important relics in medieval Christendom.
Louis purchased the relics from the Passion from Baldwin II, the Latin emperor at Constantinople, for the sum of 135,000 livres. The relics arrived in Paris in August 1239. They were stored in a large and elaborate silver chest, the Grand-Chasse, on which Louis spent a further 100,000 livres. The entire chapel, by contrast, cost 40,000 livres to build and glaze. Until it was completed in 1248, the relics were housed at chapels at the Château de Vincennes and a specially built chapel at the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye. In 1246, fragments of the True Cross and the Holy Lance were added to Louis' collection, along with other relics. The chapel was consecrated on 26 April 1248 and Louis' relics were moved to their new home with great ceremony.
Although the interior is dominated by the stained glass , every inch of the remaining wall surface and the vault was also richly colored and decorated. Analysis of remaining paint fragments reveal that the original colors were much brighter than those favored by the 19th-century restorers and would have been closer to the colors of the stained glass.
The stained glass
The most famous features of the chapel, among the finest of their type in the world, are the great stained glass windows, for whose benefit the stone wall surface is reduced to little more than a delicate framework. Fifteen huge mid-13th-century windows fill the nave and apse, while a large rose window with Flamboyant tracery (added to the upper chapel c.1490) dominates the western wall. Despite some damage the windows display a clear iconographical programme. The three windows of the eastern apse illustrate the New Testament, featuring scenes of The Passion, with the Infancy of Christ and the Life of John the Evangelist. By contrast, the windows of the nave are dominated by Old Testament exemplars of ideal kingship/queenship in an obvious nod to their royal patrons. The cycle starts at the western bay of the north wall with scenes from the Book of Genesis (heavily restored). The next ten windows of the nave follow clockwise with scenes from Exodus, Joseph, Numbers/Leviticus, Joshua/Deuteronomy, Judges, (moving to the south wall) Jeremiah/Tobias, Judith/Job, Esther, David and the Book of Kings. The final window, occupying the westernmost bay of the south wall brings this narrative of sacral kingship right up to date with a series of scenes showing the rediscovery of Christ's relics, the miracles they performed, and their relocation to Paris in the hands of King Louis himself.
Text Source: wikipedia.org
