The Cathedrals of Southern FranceMansfield, M. F. (Milburg Francisco)
History
The Cathedrals of Southern France
Mansfield, M. F. (Milburg Francisco)
Cathedrals -- France; France -- Description and travel
A monk--Michel Grillet--was hung to a mulberry-tree,--which stood where
now is the Place du Murier (mulberry),--by Coligny, who was reviled thus
in the angry dying words of the monk: "You shall be thrown out of the
window like Jezebel, and shall be ignominiously dragged through the
streets." This prophecy did not come true, but Coligny died an
inglorious death in 1572, at the instigation of the Duc de Guise.
This cathedral ranks as one of the most curious in France, and, with its
alien plan and details, has ever been the object of the profound
admiration of all who have studied its varied aspects.
Mainly it is a twelfth-century edifice throughout, in spite of the
extensive restorations of the nineteenth century, which have eradicated
many crudities that might better have been allowed to remain. It is
ranked by the Ministère des Beaux Arts as a _Monument Historique_.
The west front, in spite of the depredations before, during, and after
the Revolution, is notable for its rising tiers of round-headed arches
seated firmly on proportionate though not gross columns, its statued
niches, the rich bas-reliefs of the tympanum of its portal, the
exquisite arabesques, of lintel, frieze, and archivolt, and, above all,
its large central arch with _Vesica piscis_, and the added decorations
of emblems of the evangels and angels. In addition to all this, which
forms a gallery of artistic details in itself, the general disposition
of parts is luxurious and remarkable.
As a whole, St. Pierre is commonly credited as possessing the finest
Lombard detail to be found in the north; some say outside of Italy.
Certainly it is prodigious in its splendour, whatever may be one's
predilections for or against the expression of its art.
The church follows in general plan the same distinctive style. Its
tower, too, is Lombard, likewise the rounded apside, and--though the
church is of the elongated Latin or cruciform ground-plan--its
possession of a great central dome (with three others above the
nave--and withal aisleless) points certainly to the great domed churches
of the Lombard plain for its ancestry.
The western dome is of the eleventh century, the others of the twelfth.
Its primitiveness has been more or less distorted by later additions,
made necessary by devastation in the sixteenth century, but it ranks
to-day, with St. Front at Périgueux, as the leading example of the style
known as Aquitanian.
Above the western portal is a great window, very tall and showing in its
glass a "Last Judgment."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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