PeriodIndex

Designated a World heritage Site by UNESCO in 1979 the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Chartres was built from between 1145 and 1250. It's high nave is spanned by ogival pointed arches to form the vault, and the walls are supported by double flying buttresses. Chartres is the first building to have used buttresses as a structural element.

 

Chartres Cathedral is also unique in having retained almost all of its original 12th and 13th century stained glass.

The south side of the choir clerestory at Bourges Cathedral contains a remarkably complete early-Gothic cycle of New Testament figures, created between about 1200 and 1225. These tall, independent lancets depict apostles and evangelists in a unified iconographic programme, forming a deliberate counterpart to the Old Testament prophets on the north side of the choir.

The only New Testament figures not on the south side are those in the apex window, w.200 - the Virgin and Child with St Stephen — which stand on the north side and serve a special liturgical and dedicatory function.

Pages