Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3: France and the Netherlands, Part 1
History
Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3: France and the Netherlands, Part 1
France -- Description and travel; Netherlands -- Description and travel
There are seven chapels at the east of the church, but none are found
in the naves. The plainness of the nave, in comparison with the ornate
character of the exterior, is very remarkable, but this plainness
detracts nothing from the impressiveness of its long arcades, its
towering roof, the noble lines which rise from the ground and support,
as it were, on slender sinews of stone, the shadowy ceiling. The
rose-windows, four in number, are filled with glass of the thirteenth
century, and the tall windows of the chevet and clerestory contain a
many colored mosaic of a similar sort. I was particularly struck with
the rose-window over the western portal. It represents the Beautiful
Vision; the Eternal Father is throned in the central ring of the
window, and in the radiating panes is the Hierarchy of Paradise, angels
and archangels and all the company of Heaven, while in a wider
circumference are grouped the redeemed, contemplating in adoration the
majesty of God.
I noticed two very interesting tombs in Rheims cathedral. The first was
the sarcophagus of Jovinus, the Christian prefect of Rheims, in the
fourth century, who protected the church and was originally buried in
the Abbey of St. Nicaise, from whence his tomb was brought to the
cathedral. It consists of a single block of snowy marble, nine feet
long, and four feet high, on which the consular general is represented
in a spirited bas-relief mounted on horseback and saving the life of a
man from the lion, in whose flank Jovinus has launched his spear. Very
fine indeed is the workmanship of this monument. The figures which
surround Jovinus are men of handsome countenance, evidently portraits,
their dress and arms being finished with the utmost nicety of detail.
The figures are about half life-size.
The other tomb is that of St. Remigius, a Renaissance work erected by
Cardinal Delenoncourt in 1533. It is sumptuous and gaudy rather than
beautiful. Twelve statues, full life-size, represent the twelve peers
of France, six are the prelates of Rheims, Laon, Langres, Beauvais,
Chalons, and Noyon; the six lay peers are the dukes of Burgundy,
Normandy and Aquitaine, and the counts of Flanders, Champagne, and
Toulouse. The white marble of these somewhat stagey figures is
beautifully worked and the effect is imposing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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