Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1Rose, Elise Whitlock
Religion
Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1
Rose, Elise Whitlock
Cathedrals -- France; France -- Description and travel
About two hundred years later, in 1285, the Archbishop of Aix found the
Cathedral too unpretending for the rank and dignity of the See, and he
began the Gothic additions. Like many another prelate his ambitions were
larger than his means; and the history of Saint-Sauveur from the XIII to
the XIX century, is that oft-told tale of new indulgences offered for
new contributions, halts and delays in construction, emptied treasuries,
and again, appeals and fresh efforts. The beginnings of the enlarged
Cathedral were architecturally abrupt. The old nave, becoming the south
aisle, was connected with the new by two small openings; it retained
much of its separateness and in spite of added chapels much actual
isolation. The Gothic nave, the north aisle and its many chapels, the
apse, and the transepts, whose building and re-construction stretched
over the long period between the XIII and XVII centuries, are
comparatively regular, uniform, and uninteresting. The most ambitious
view is that of the central nave, whose whole length is so little broken
by entrances to the side aisles, that it seems almost solidly enclosed
by its massive walls. Here in Gothic bays, are found those rounded,
longitudinal arches which belong to the Romanesque and to some structure
whose identity is buried in the mysterious past. The choir, with its
long, narrow windows, and clusters of columnettes, is very pleasing, and
its seven sides, foreign to Provence, remind one of Italian and Spanish
constructive forms and take one's memory on strange jaunts, to the
far-away Frari in Venice and the colder Abbey of London. From the choir
of Saint-Sauveur two chapels open; and one of them is a charming bit of
architecture, a replica in miniature of the mother-apse itself. The
paintings of this mother-apse are neutral, its glass has no claim to
sumptuousness, and the stalls are very unpretending; but above them hang
tapestries ascribed to Matsys, splendid hangings of the Flemish school
that were once in old Saint Paul's.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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