Historical Sketch of the Cathedral of StrasburgAnonymous
History
Historical Sketch of the Cathedral of Strasburg
Anonymous
Strassburger Münster
The nave, decked with a copper roof, abounds no less in
decoration than the front. It has large ogive windows adorned
with _rosaces_; at the place where the buttresses, equally carved
with _rosaces_, join the counterforts or pillars, they have at
their tops fine clochetoons; a great many statues and grotesque
figures of heads complete the ornaments of this part of the
church. Two galleries, one under the windows, the other below the
clochetoons of the counterforts, lead from the towers to the
cross-aisle. This, as we have already said, is still byzantine
in several parts of it. The southern porch, formed by two
semi-circular doors made evidently at one of the remotest periods
of the Cathedral, is adorned with bas-reliefs and statues;
according to tradition, it is reported that two of these statues
are the work of Sabina of Steinbach. One is a woman in a
triumphal posture holding in her hands a communion cup and a
cross; she is the symbol of the church that vanquished the
synagogue; the other, a symbol of the latter, is a woman looking
down, blindfolded and leaning with pain on a broken spear, whilst
the laws of the twelve tables drop from her left hand. On the
parvis before this porch is erected, on the left, the statue of
Sabina herself, and on the right, the statue of Erwin of
Steinbach, both due to the chisel of Mr. Grass.
The wall of the upper tier has openings for several windows of
an ogive form, above which a gallery runs all along; two
round-windows take up the third tier. The northern portion of the
cross-aisle has more generally preserved the byzantine manner
than that we have just spoken of; however, this intermixture with
the gothic style denounces latter renovations. The ancient porch,
the remains of very old constructions, is masked by a fore-front
that belongs to the last period of the gothic art, and which was
built in 1494 by James of Landshut; this new porch (_porch of St.
Laurence_), though handsome in its _ensemble_, is wanting in that
noble simplicity and purity of taste that distinguishes the other
parts of the Cathedral; it is overloaded with ornaments, and its
statues have a stiffness that is found nowhere else.
The octangular dome over the chancel is also of the byzantine
era; however, it has been renewed in several parts. In the place
of the deformed cupola, destroyed by the fire of 1870, a handsome
pyramid has been erected in the year 1878, after the plans of Mr.
Klotz, architect of the Cathedral.
Up to 1772 the lower part of the lateral fronts of the church was
disfigured by paltry decayed houses; the same year they were
pulled down and in their places the present porticos were built,
which are not wanting in elegance: the shops and stalls that
formerly obstructed in so disgraceful a manner the access to the
nave, have also disappeared; and the porches have been repaired
with a great amount of good taste.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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