The site of the Notre Dame is 'the cradle of Paris'
and has always been the religious center of the city.
The Celts had their sacred ground here and on it the
Romans built a temple or worship to Jupiter.
A Christian basilica was built in the 6th century and
later a Romanesque church.
Notre Dame de Paris is a Gothic cathedral siuated on
the eastern half of the Île de la Cité
with its main entrance to the west. It is still used as
a Roman Catholic cathedral and is the seat of the
Archbishop of Paris. Notre Dame de Paris is widely
considered one of the finest examples of French Gothic
architecture. It was restored, and so saved from
destruction by Viollet-le-Duc, one of France's most
famous architects.
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The construction spanned the Gothic period. Its
sculptures and stained glass show the influence
of 'naturalism', giving them a more secular
appearance that was lacking in earlier Romanesque
architecture.
Notre Dame de Paris was among the first buildings
in the world to use the flying buttress. The
building was not originally designed to include
the buttresses but after the construction began
and the thin walls grew ever higher, stress
fractures began to occur when the walls tended to
push outward.
At the end of the 18th century, during the French
Revolution, many of the treasures of the
cathedral were either destroyed or plundered. The
statues of biblical kings of Judea (erroneously
thought to be kings of France) were beheaded.
Many of the heads were found during the nearby
1977 excavation and these are on display at the
Musée de Cluny.
Only the great bells avoided being melted down,
and the cathedral was dedicated first to the Cult
of Reason, and then to the Cult of the Supreme
Being. The church interior was used as a
warehouse for the storage of forage and
food.
After falling into disrepair, a restoration
program, overseen by Jean-Baptiste-Antoine Lassus
(who died 1857) and Eugène Viollet-le-Duc,
was carried out in 1845. This programme lasted 23
years and included the construction of the spire
(see the picture above) and the
sacristy.
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