Since its construction, Notre Dame Cathedral has played a central role in French cultural identity. In the wake of the tragic fire of 2019, questions of how to restore the fabric of this quintessential French monument are once more at the forefront. This all-too-prescient book, first published in French in 2013, takes a central place in the conversation.
The Gothic cathedral par excellence, Notre Dame set the architectural bar in the competitive years of the third quarter of the twelfth century and dazzled the architects and aesthetes of the Enlightenment with its structural ingenuity. In the nineteenth century, the cathedral became the touchstone of a movement to restore medieval patrimony to its rightful place at the cultural heart of France: it was transformed into a colossal laboratory in which architects Jean-Baptiste Lassus and Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc anatomized structures, dismembered them, put them back, or built them anew—all the while documenting their work with scientific precision.
Taking as their point of departure a three-dimensional laser scan of the cathedral created in 2010, architectural historians Dany Sandron and the late Andrew Tallon tell the story of the construction and reconstruction of Notre Dame in visual terms. With over a billion points of data, the scan supplies a highly accurate spatial map of the building, which is anatomized and rebuilt virtually. Fourteen double-page images represent the cathedral at specific points in time, while the accompanying text sets out the history of the building, addressing key topics such as the fundraising campaign, the construction of the vaults, and the liturgical function of the choir.
Featuring 170 full-color illustrations and elegantly translated by Andrew Tallon and Lindsay Cook, Notre Dame Cathedral is an enlightening history of one of the world’s most treasured architectural achievements.
“Smaller, more concise, and more streamlined than a traditional monograph, it emphasizes a series of graphics developed from Tallon’s 3D-scan data, which together purport to show the development of Notre-Dame over the nine centuries of its history. In this way it helps to make the fruits of recent research on the cathedral’s history readily accessible to nonspecialist readers. The new translation undertaken by Lindsay Cook, who studied with both Murray and Tallon and whose own research considers parish churches constructed in the orbit of Notre-Dame, now effectively expands that mission to anglophone audiences.”—Robert Bork, caa.reviews
Dany Sandron is Professor of Art and Archaeology at Sorbonne Université.
Andrew Tallon (1969–2018) was Associate Professor of Art at Vassar College.
Lindsay Cook is Visiting Assistant Professor of Art at Vassar College.
This volume is currently available on sale here.
Contents:
1163: Planning the Cathedral
The Bishop
The Cathedral Chapter
The Fabric
Resources
Episcopal Donations
Capitular Donations
Lay Donations
1170: Building the Cathedral
The Materials
The Master Mason
The Design
The Construction
1177: Constructing the Vaults
The Vaults
Technical Aspects of Vault Construction
The Space of the Choir
1182: Liturgical Choir and Sanctuary
The Liturgical Choir
Staging the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy
The Medieval Sanctuary
1208: Form and Meaning
The Choir
The Nave
1220: Portals and the Gallery of Kings
1225: Changing Tastes
A Radical Transformation
The Changes
Instability of the West Front
1245: Towers and Bells, Marking Time at the Cathedral
The Casting of a Bell
1265: Relics and Processions
Relics and Reliquaries
Stational Liturgy and Processions
1300: Pious Foundations and Tombs
The Choir: Preserve of Prelates and Princes
The Chapels
Confraternities at Notre Dame
1350: A Point of Reference
The Architects
Directing the Works
1780: Baroque Transformations
1860: The Major Restoration of Lassus and Viollet-le-Duc
Notre Dame in Peril
The Invention of French Cultural Heritage
The Competition
The Project
The Restoration
The Rational Cathedral
The Cathedral Today
Conclusion
Plan of Notre Dame
Glossary
Selected Bibliography
Credits
Medieval Art Research 