Essay On Gothic Cathedrals

Medieval Church: Gothic Cathedral The architecture of the medieval Gothic cathedrals is one of the greatest glories of European culture. Since the twelfth century, Gothic art and literature in Europe had become very popular, and were soon brought to perfection in the thirteenth century. The first Gothic cathedral was the abbey of Saint-Denis (built around 1140 and 1150 ce); it was inspired by the famous Abbot Suger. This cathedral was burned down twice and without the reconstruction of it, Notre Dame, and all the cathedrals in the future would not have been established the way they were. Saint-Denis started a revolution of cathedrals in the Gothic style. These cathedrals were made much taller than the Romanesque churches by using pointed …show more content…
Notre Dame de Paris means “Our Lady of Paris” in French. The cathedral was built in Paris, France along the Ile de la Cite in the Seine between 1163 and 1250. It is recognized for its size, being 130 meters long, 48 meters wide, and 35 meters high. Maurice de Sully wanted to build a cathedral that was good enough for France’s biggest city, so one morning, the people of Paris were awoken by the sound of falling rubble. They hurried to the island in the Seine River where their cathedral stood, surprised to see that it was being demolished. Bishop Maurice drew a plan on the ground with a stick to show the builders his dream of the cathedral that would rise above Paris and when they told him that there wouldn’t be enough space, he demanded that they pull down the surrounding houses to make room. Bishop Maurice was a rich man, so he paid for the best stonemasons, the most skilled carpenters, and the finest painters to be summoned from all over France.As the walls of Notre Dame rose from the ground, people began to realize how special it was going to be. Like most Gothic cathedrals, the building of Notre dame was done by the entire community, where all of the classes took part. Everybody wanted to make an equal contribution to God and Mary, so everyone did their best to help out. In fact, Maurice de Sully wanted to dedicate the cathedral to Mary, hence the name “Our lady of Paris.” Notre Dame has been a major symbol …show more content…
During the renaissance period, It was considered to be the main church of Florence, Italy. During this time, many Italian cities were competing to see who could build the largest and greatest cathedral. Florence decided it was their turn to build one in place of the smaller church of Santa Reparata in the late thirteenth century. Since florence was a fairly wealthy city due to their textile trade, they knew they could compete with neighboring cities; thus construction began in approximately 1296. The cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore ended up holding just over 30,000 people. Although Santa Maria is a gothic church, it does have some differing qualities. Some of its architecture is related to the Romanesque style of architecture. While the structure of the domes of common Gothic cathedrals and Santa-Maria are the same, the bays in Santa-Maria are quite larger in comparison. With the arches being wider in order to make the larger bays, is makes the main part look much wider and the side aisles to appear very shallow. This gives it more of a horizontal aspect, which is more of the Italian touch, rather than those of most Gothic cathedrals that emphasize height. While these few aspects differ, arguably the most important element to the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore is its dome, which was not built with the rest of the cathedral but it was so enormous that it