1.
Violette Leduc
–
Violette Leduc was a French author. She was born in Arras, Pas de Calais, France and she was the illegitimate daughter of a servant girl, Berthe Leduc and André Debaralle, the son of a rich protestant family in Valenciennes, who subsequently refused to legitimize her. In Valenciennes, Violette spent most of her suffering from poor self-esteem, exacerbated by her mothers hostility. She developed tender friendships with her grandmother Fideline and her maternal aunt Laure and her grandmother died when Leduc was a young child. Her formal education began in 1913, but was interrupted by World War I. After the war, she went to a school, the Collège de Douai, where she experienced lesbian affairs with her classmate Isabelle. The novel was censored until 2000 and it was also during this time that she was introduced to what would become her first literary passions, the Russian classics, then Cocteau, Duhamel, Gide, Proust and Rimbaud. In 1925, Leduc embarked on an affair with her music instructor, the affair was later discovered and Hertgès was fired over the incident. In 1926 Leduc moved to Paris, along with her mother and step-father and that same year, she failed her baccalaureate exam and began working as a press cuttings clerk and secretary at Plon publishers later becoming a writer of news pieces about their publications. She continued to live with Denise for nine years in the suburbs of Paris, in 1942 she met Maurice Sachs - future author of Le Sabbat - and Simone de Beauvoir, who encouraged her to write. Her first novel, LAsphyxie, was published by Albert Camus for Éditions Gallimard and earned her praise from Jean-Paul Sartre, Jean Cocteau and her friendship with Sachs is detailed in her autobiography La Bâtarde. In 1955 Leduc was forced to part of her novel Ravages because of sexually explicit passages describing lesbianism. The censored part was published as a separate novella, Thérèse and Isabelle. Another novel, Le Taxi, caused controversy because of its depiction of incest between a brother and sister, critic Edith J. Benkov compared this novel with the work of Marguerite Duras and Nathalie Sarraute. Leducs best-known book, the memoir La Bâtarde, was published in 1964 and it nearly won the Prix Goncourt and quickly became a bestseller. She went on to write eight more books, including La Folie en tête, in 1968 Radley Metzger made a film of Leducs novel Thérèse and Isabelle. The film was a feature about adolescent lesbian love, starring Essy Persson. Leduc developed breast cancer and died at the age of 65 after two operations and she was living at Faucon, Vaucluse, at the time of her death
Violette Leduc
–
Violette Leduc
2.
Nadar (artist)
–
Nadar was the pseudonym of Gaspard-Félix Tournachon, a French photographer, caricaturist, journalist, novelist, and balloonist. Photographic portraits by Nadar are held by many of the national collections of photographs. Nadar was born in April 1820 in Paris and his father, Victor Tournachon, was a printer and bookseller. After his fathers death, Nadar decided to quit his studies for economic reasons. Nadar started working as a caricaturist and novelist for various newspapers and he fell in with the Parisian bohemian group of Gérard de Nerval, Charles Baudelaire and Théodore de Banville. His friends picked a nickname for him, Tournadar, which later became Nadar and his work was published in Le Charivari for the first time in 1848. In 1849, he founded the Revue comique and the Petit journal pour rire, from work as a caricaturist, he moved on to photography, particularly portraits. He opened his studio in rue Saint Lazare in 1854. Nadar photographed a wide range of personalities, politicians, stage actors, writers, painters, portrait photography was going through a period of native industrialization and Nadar refused to use the traditional sumptuous decors, preferred natural daylight and despised useless accessories. In 1886, with his son Paul, he did what may be the first photo-report and it was published in Le Journal Illustré. He took his first photographs in 1853 and in 1855 opened a studio at 25 Boulevard des Capucines. He also pioneered the use of lighting in photography, working in the catacombs of Paris. He was the first person to photograph above ground with his balloons, as well as the first to photograph below ground, Le Géant was badly damaged at the end of its second flight, leading Nadar to the conviction that heavier-than-air machines would be more successful. Later, The Society for the Encouragement of Aerial Locomotion by Means of Heavier than Air Machines was established, with Nadar as president, Nadar was the inspiration for the character of Michael Ardan in Vernes From the Earth to the Moon. On his visit to Brussels with Le Géant, on 26 September 1864, crowd control barriers are still known in Belgium as Nadar barriers. In April 1874, he lent his studio to a group of painters to present the first exhibition of the Impressionists. He photographed Victor Hugo on his death-bed in 1885 and he is credited with having published the first photo-interview, and also took erotic photographs. From 1895 until his return to Paris in 1909, the Nadar photo studio was in Marseilles, Nadar died in 1910, aged 89
Nadar (artist)
–
Self-portrait circa 1860
Nadar (artist)
–
"Nadar élevant la Photographie à la hauteur de l'Art" (Nadar elevating Photography to Art). Lithograph by
Honoré Daumier, appearing in Le Boulevard, May 25, 1863.
Nadar (artist)
–
1863: Disaster with "Le Géant" at
Neustadt am Rübenberge at
Hanover. Illustration in a newspaper
Nadar (artist)
–
Self-portrait in a balloon.
3.
Building restoration
–
Building restoration describes a particular treatment approach and philosophy within the field of architectural conservation. The limited and sensitive upgrading of mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems, tsarskoye Selo, the complex of former royal palaces outside St Petersburg in Russia is an example of this sort of work. Exterior and interior paint colors present similar problems over time, air pollution, acid rain, and sun take a toll, and often many layers different paint exist. Historic paint analysis of old paint layers now allow a corresponding chemical recipe, but this is often only a beginning as many of the original materials are either unstable or in many cases environmentally unsound. Many eighteenth century greens were made with arsenic and lead, materials no longer allowed in paints, another problem occurs when the original pigment came from a material no longer available. For example, in the early to mid-19th century, some browns were produced from bits of ground mummies, in the United States the National Trust for Historic Preservation is a helpful resource. The polychrome painted interiors of the Vermont State House and Boston Public Library are examples of type of heritage restoration. The standards were developed in 1975 and updated in 1992, the standards deal with the. materials, features, finishes, spaces, and spatial relationships. Of historic buildings and are divided into preservation, rehabilitating, restoration and reconstruction, all materials added to a building over its life are retained and only work which is necessary to protect it from deterioration is carried out. Rehabilitation is a standard for preservation but is more lenient because it presumes the building is so deteriorated that it needs some repairs to prevent further deterioration and this may include removing some historic building elements to make the building historically accurate for a specific date in history. Reconstruction allows the re-creation of a building or element in all new. The first steps in a restoration to the Secretarys standards are to study the building, the new use of the building should be consistent with the original use or at least with the time period of the restoration. Materials which were added after the time period must be documented. Materials missing may be reconstructed to. match the old in design, color, texture, and, modern chemical and physical treatments may be gently used if they do not damage the historic materials, and archaeological resources will be preserved or mitigated. The standards recognize that there are inherent conflicts with modern codes and regulations for energy efficiency, health, safety, the standards allow sensitive alterations of historic buildings to meet the spirit of the codes and regulations, if necessary. Storm restoration is the restoring of a due to damage from a severe storm. Most damage is caused by wind gusts or hail, but may also include large amounts of rainfall, lightning strikes. The majority of damage occurs on roofs, sides of structures, and in basements
Building restoration
–
Before restoration (2001)
Building restoration
–
After restoration (2009)
Building restoration
–
The Veterinary School's Anatomical Theatre of the
Humboldt University of Berlin before and after its restoration.
Building restoration
–
Rebuilding of the historical city centre of
Sidon in
Lebanon after the civil war.
4.
Medieval
–
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or Medieval Period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance, the Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history, classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is subdivided into the Early, High. Population decline, counterurbanisation, invasion, and movement of peoples, the large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the seventh century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire survived in the east and remained a major power, the empires law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or Code of Justinian, was rediscovered in Northern Italy in 1070 and became widely admired later in the Middle Ages. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions, monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise pagan Europe continued. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th, the Crusades, first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims. Kings became the heads of centralised nation states, reducing crime and violence, intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities. Controversy, heresy, and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the conflict, civil strife. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages, the Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history, classical civilisation, or Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Modern Period. Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the Six Ages or the Four Empires, when referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being modern. In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua, leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People. Bruni and later argued that Italy had recovered since Petrarchs time. The Middle Ages first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or middle season, in early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum, or middle age, first recorded in 1604, and media saecula, or middle ages, first recorded in 1625. The alternative term medieval derives from medium aevum, tripartite periodisation became standard after the German 17th-century historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods, Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is 476, for Europe as a whole,1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date. English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period
Medieval
–
The
Cross of Mathilde, a
crux gemmata made for
Mathilde, Abbess of Essen (973–1011), who is shown kneeling before the Virgin and Child in the
enamel plaque. The body of Christ is slightly later. Probably made in
Cologne or
Essen, the cross demonstrates several medieval techniques:
cast figurative sculpture,
filigree, enamelling, gem polishing and setting, and the reuse of Classical
cameos and
engraved gems.
Medieval
–
A late Roman statue
depicting the four Tetrarchs, now in
Venice
Medieval
–
Coin of
Theodoric
Medieval
–
Mosaic showing
Justinian with
the bishop of
Ravenna, bodyguards, and courtiers
5.
Gothic Revival
–
Gothic Revival is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. Gothic Revival draws features from the original Gothic style, including decorative patterns, finials, scalloping, lancet windows, hood mouldings, the Gothic Revival movement emerged in 19th-century England. Its roots were intertwined with deeply philosophical movements associated with a re-awakening of High Church or Anglo-Catholic belief concerned by the growth of religious nonconformism, ultimately, the Anglo-Catholicism tradition of religious belief and style became widespread for its intrinsic appeal in the third quarter of the 19th century. The Gothic Revival was paralleled and supported by medievalism, which had its roots in antiquarian concerns with survivals, as industrialisation progressed, a reaction against machine production and the appearance of factories also grew. Proponents of the such as Thomas Carlyle and Augustus Pugin took a critical view of industrial society. To Pugin, Gothic architecture was infused with the Christian values that had been supplanted by classicism and were being destroyed by industrialisation, poems such as Idylls of the King by Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson recast specifically modern themes in medieval settings of Arthurian romance. In German literature, the Gothic Revival also had a grounding in literary fashions, guarino Guarini, a 17th-century Theatine monk active primarily in Turin, recognized the Gothic order as one of the primary systems of architecture and made use of it in his practice. Some of the earliest evidence of a revival in Gothic architecture is from Scotland, inveraray Castle, constructed from 1746, with design input from William Adam, displays the incorporation of turrets. These were largely conventional Palladian style houses that incorporated some features of the Scots baronial style. The eccentric landscape designer Batty Langley even attempted to improve Gothic forms by giving them classical proportions, a younger generation, taking Gothic architecture more seriously, provided the readership for J. Brittens series of Cathedral Antiquities, which began appearing in 1814. In 1817, Thomas Rickman wrote an Attempt. to name and define the sequence of Gothic styles in English ecclesiastical architecture, the categories he used were Norman, Early English, Decorated, and Perpendicular. It went through numerous editions and was still being republished by 1881. The largest and most famous Gothic cathedrals in the U. S. A. are St. Patricks Cathedral in New York City and Washington National Cathedral on Mount St. Alban in northwest Washington, D. C. One of the biggest churches in Gothic Revival style in Canada is Basilica of Our Lady Immaculate in Ontario, Gothic Revival architecture was to remain one of the most popular and long-lived of the Gothic Revival styles of architecture. The revived Gothic style was not limited to architecture, classical Gothic buildings of the 12th to 16th Centuries were a source of inspiration to 19th-century designers in numerous fields of work. Architectural elements such as pointed arches, steep-sloping roofs and fancy carvings like lace ant lattice work were applied to a range of Gothic Revival objects. Sir Walter Scotts Abbotsford exemplifies in its furnishings the Regency Gothic style, parties in medieval historical dress and entertainment were popular among the wealthy in the 1800s but has spread in the late 20th century to the well-educated middle class as well. By the mid-19th century, Gothic traceries and niches could be inexpensively re-created in wallpaper, the illustrated catalogue for the Great Exhibition of 1851 is replete with Gothic detail, from lacemaking and carpet designs to heavy machinery
Gothic Revival
–
Notable Gothic Revival edifices: top:
Palace of Westminster, London; left:
Cathedral of Learning,
Pittsburgh; right:
Sint-Petrus-en-Pauluskerk,
Ostend
Gothic Revival
–
The unifying style of
Parliament Hill,
Ottawa, is Gothic Revival
Gothic Revival
–
Sacred Heart Church,
Kőszeg, Hungary
Gothic Revival
–
Imitation fan-vaulting in the Gothick Long Gallery at
Horace Walpole 's
Strawberry Hill
6.
Beaux-Arts architecture
–
Beaux-Arts architecture expresses the academic neoclassical architectural style taught at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. The style of instruction that produced Beaux-Arts architecture continued without interruption until 1968. The Beaux-Arts style heavily influenced the architecture of the United States in the period from 1880 to 1920, in contrast, many European architects of the period 1860–1914 outside France gravitated away from Beaux-Arts and towards their own national academic centers. American architects of the Beaux-Arts generation often returned to Greek models, for the first time, repertories of photographs supplemented meticulous scale drawings and on-site renderings of details. Beaux-Arts training emphasized the production of quick conceptual sketches, highly finished perspective presentation drawings, close attention to the program, site considerations tended toward social and urbane contexts. In the façade shown to the right, Diana grasps the cornice she sits on in an action typical of Beaux-Arts integration of sculpture with architecture. A sense of appropriate idiom at the craftsman level supported the teams of the first truly modern architectural offices. The prestige of the École gave the style Beaux-Arts a second wind in combining the new manner with the traditional training and they were followed by an entire generation. Henry Hobson Richardson absorbed Beaux-Arts lessons in massing and spatial planning and his Beaux-Arts training taught him to transcend slavish copying and recreate in the essential fully digested and idiomatic manner of his models. Richardson evolved a personal style freed of historicism that was influential in early Modernism. The White City of the Worlds Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago was a triumph of the movement, the Beaux-Arts curriculum was subsequently begun at Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania, and elsewhere. From 1916, the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design in New York City schooled architects, painters, bosworth, Carnegie Mellon University, designed by Henry Hornbostel, and the University of Texas, designed by Paul Philippe Cret. Beaux-Arts architecture also brought a civic face to the railroad, two of the best American examples of the Beaux-Arts tradition stand within a few blocks of each other, Grand Central Terminal and the New York Public Library. Another prominent U. S. example of the style is the largest academic dormitory in the world, in the late 1800s, during the years when Beaux-Arts architecture was at a peak in France, Americans were one of the largest groups of foreigners in Paris. Many of them were architects and students of architecture who brought this back to America. Beaux-Arts was very prominent in public buildings in Canada in the early 20th century, notably all three prairie provinces legislative buildings are in this style. Buenos Aires is a center of Beaux-Arts architecture which continued to be built as late as the 1950s, national Theatre, Melbourne General Post Office building, Forrest Place, Perth Argus Building. Beaux-Arts Architecture in New York, A Photographic Guide United States, sixteenth Street Architecture – profiles of Beaux-Arts architecture in Washington D. C
Beaux-Arts architecture
–
The
Palais Garnier (1861-75), an example of
Second Empire Beaux Arts style, typically employing
Neo-Baroque decorative elements
Beaux-Arts architecture
–
Farmer Palace in
Kazan,
Russia
Beaux-Arts architecture
–
The
San Francisco War Memorial Opera House of 1932, among the last major American buildings constructed in the Beaux-Arts style
Beaux-Arts architecture
–
Beaux-Arts building decoration presenting images of the Roman
goddesses Pomona and
Diana. Note the naturalism of the postures and the
channeled rustication of the stonework.
7.
Statue of Liberty
–
The Statue of Liberty is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor in New York City, in the United States. The copper statue, a gift from the people of France to the people of the United States, was designed by French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, the statue was dedicated on October 28,1886. The Statue of Liberty is a female figure representing Libertas. She holds a torch above her head, and in her left arm carries a tabula ansata inscribed July 4,1776, a broken chain lies at her feet. The statue became an icon of freedom and of the United States, due to the post-war instability in France, work on the statue did not commence until the early 1870s. In 1875, Laboulaye proposed that the French finance the statue, Bartholdi completed the head and the torch-bearing arm before the statue was fully designed, and these pieces were exhibited for publicity at international expositions. The torch-bearing arm was displayed at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876, fundraising proved difficult, especially for the Americans, and by 1885 work on the pedestal was threatened due to lack of funds. Publisher Joseph Pulitzer of the New York World started a drive for donations to complete the project attracted more than 120,000 contributors. The statue was constructed in France, shipped overseas in crates, the statues completion was marked by New Yorks first ticker-tape parade and a dedication ceremony presided over by President Grover Cleveland. The statue was administered by the United States Lighthouse Board until 1901 and then by the Department of War, public access to the balcony surrounding the torch has been barred for safety reasons since 1916. The project is traced to a conversation between Édouard René de Laboulaye, a staunch abolitionist and Frédéric Bartholdi, a sculptor. The National Park Service, in a 2000 report, however, deemed this a legend traced to an 1885 fundraising pamphlet, in order to honor these achievements, Laboulaye proposed that a gift be built for the United States on behalf of France. Laboulaye hoped that by calling attention to the recent achievements of the United States, according to sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, who later recounted the story, Laboulayes comment was not intended as a proposal, but it inspired Bartholdi. Given the repressive nature of the regime of Napoleon III, Bartholdi took no action on the idea except to discuss it with Laboulaye. Sketches and models were made of the work, though it was never erected. There was a precedent for the Suez proposal, the Colossus of Rhodes. This statue is believed to have been over 100 feet high, any large project was further delayed by the Franco-Prussian War, in which Bartholdi served as a major of militia. In the war, Napoleon III was captured and deposed, Bartholdis home province of Alsace was lost to the Prussians, and a more liberal republic was installed in France
Statue of Liberty
–
Statue of Liberty
Statue of Liberty
–
Bartholdi's design patent
Statue of Liberty
–
Bartholdi's
Lion of Belfort
Statue of Liberty
–
Detail from a fresco by
Constantino Brumidi in the
U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., showing two early symbols of America:
Columbia (left) and the Indian princess
8.
Salon (gathering)
–
These gatherings often consciously followed Horaces definition of the aims of poetry, either to please or to educate. Salons, commonly associated with French literary and philosophical movements of the 17th and 18th centuries, were carried on until as recently as the 1940s in urban settings, the salon was an Italian invention of the 16th century which flourished in France throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. The salon continued to flourish in Italy throughout the 19th century, one important place for the exchange of ideas was the salon. The word salon first appeared in France in 1664, Literary gatherings before this were often referred to by using the name of the room in which they occurred, like cabinet, réduit, ruelle and alcôve. Before the end of the 17th century, these gatherings were held in the bedroom. This practice may be contrasted with the formalities of Louis XIVs petit lever. She established the rules of etiquette of the salon which resembled the earlier codes of Italian chivalry, the historiography of the salons is far from straightforward. The salons have been studied in depth by a mixture of feminist, Marxist, each of these methodologies focus on different aspects of the salons, and thus have varying analyses of the salons’ importance in terms of French history and the Enlightenment as a whole. Major historiographical debates focus on the relationship between the salons and the sphere, as well as the role of women within the salons. Breaking down the salons into historical periods is complicated due to the various historiographical debates that surround them, most studies stretch from the early 16th century up until around the end of the 18th century. Goodman is typical in ending her study at the French Revolution where, she writes, Steven Kale is relatively alone in his recent attempts to extend the period of the salon up until Revolution of 1848. This world did not disappear in 1789, as recently as the 1940s, salons hosted by Gertrude Stein gained notoriety for including Pablo Picasso and other twentieth-century luminaries like Alice B. The content and form of the salon to some extent defines the character, contemporary literature about the salons is dominated by idealistic notions of politesse, civilité and honnêteté, but whether the salons lived up to these standards is matter of debate. Older texts on the salons tend to paint a picture of the salons. Today, however, this view is considered an adequate analysis of the salon. Dena Goodman claims that rather than being leisure based or schools of civilité salons were instead at the heart of the philosophic community. In short, Goodman argues, the 17th and 18th century saw the emergence of the academic, Enlightenment salons, politeness, argues Goodman, took second-place to academic discussion. The period in which salons were dominant has been labeled the age of conversation, the topics of conversation within the salons - that is, what was and was not polite to talk about - are thus vital when trying to determine the form of the salons
Salon (gathering)
–
Réunion de dames,
Abraham Bosse, 17th century.
Salon (gathering)
–
A Reading in the Salon of Mme Geoffrin, 1755
Salon (gathering)
–
"Abbé Delille reciting his poem, La Conversation in the salon of Madame Geoffrin" from Jacques Delille, "La Conversation" (Paris, 1812)
Salon (gathering)
–
Portrait of Mme Geoffrin, salonnière, by
Marianne Loir (National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC)
9.
Stendhal
–
Marie-Henri Beyle, better known by his pen name Stendhal, was a 19th-century French writer. Born in Grenoble, Isère, he was a child, disliking his unimaginative father and mourning his mother, whom he passionately loved. He spent the happiest years of his life at the Beyle country house in Claix near Grenoble and his closest friend was his younger sister, Pauline, with whom he maintained a steady correspondence throughout the first decade of the 19th century. The military and theatrical worlds of the First French Empire were a revelation to Beyle and he was named an auditor with the Conseil dÉtat on 3 August 1810, and thereafter took part in the French administration and in the Napoleonic wars in Italy. He travelled extensively in Germany and was part of Napoleons army in the 1812 invasion of Russia, Stendhal witnessed the burning of Moscow from just outside the city. Stendhal was appointed Commissioner of War Supplies and sent to Smolensk to prepare provisions for the returning army and he crossed the Berezina River by finding a usable ford rather than the overwhelmed pontoon bridge, which probably saved his life and those of his companions. Stendhal arrived in Paris in 1813, largely unaware of the fiasco that the retreat had become. Stendhal became known, during the Russian campaign, for keeping his wits about him and he also maintained his daily routine, shaving each day during the retreat from Moscow. After the 1814 Treaty of Fontainebleau, he left for Italy and he formed a particular attachment to Italy, where he spent much of the remainder of his career, serving as French consul at Trieste and Civitavecchia. His novel The Charterhouse of Parma, written in 52 days, is set in Italy, Stendhal was a dandy and wit about town in Paris, as well as an inveterate womaniser who was obsessed with his sexual conquests. His genuine empathy towards women is evident in his books, Simone de Beauvoir spoke highly of him in The Second Sex. One of his works is On Love, a rational analysis of romantic passion that was based on his unrequited love for Mathilde, Countess Dembowska. This fusion of, and tension between, clear-headed analysis and romantic feeling is typical of Stendhals great novels, he could be considered a Romantic realist, Stendhal suffered miserable physical disabilities in his final years as he continued to produce some of his most famous work. Modern medicine has shown that his problems were more attributable to his treatment than to his syphilis. Stendhal died on 23 March 1842, a few hours after collapsing with a seizure on the streets of Paris and he is interred in the Cimetière de Montmartre. Before settling on the pen name Stendhal, he published under pen names, including Louis Alexandre Bombet. The only book that Stendhal published under his own name was The History of Painting, from the publication of Rome, Naples, Florence onwards, he published his works under the pseudonym M. de Stendhal, officier de cavalerie. He borrowed this nom de plume from the German city of Stendal, birthplace of Johann Joachim Winckelmann, in 1807 Stendhal stayed near Stendal, where he fell in love with a woman named Wilhelmine, whom he called Minette, and for whose sake he remained in the city
Stendhal
–
Stendhal, by Olof Johan Södermark, 1840
Stendhal
–
A plaque on a house in
Vilnius where Stendhal stayed in December 1812 during
Napoleon 's retreat from Russia.
Stendhal
–
Stendhal's depiction of "crystallization" in the process of falling in love.
10.
Sainte-Beuve
–
Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve was a literary critic of French literature. He was born in Boulogne, educated there, and studied medicine at the Collège Charlemagne in Paris, in 1828, he served in the St Louis Hospital. Sainte-Beuve became friendly with Hugo after publishing a review of the authors work but later had an affair with Hugos wife. His articles and essays were collected the volumes Port-Royal and Portraits littéraires, during the rebellions of 1848 in Europe, he lectured at Liège on Chateaubriand and his literary circle. He returned to Paris in 1849 and began his series of columns, Causeries du lundi in the newspaper. When Louis Napoleon became Emperor, he made Sainte-Beuve professor of Latin poetry at the Collège de France, but anti-Imperialist students hissed him, and he resigned. After several books of poetry and a couple of failed novels, Sainte-Beuve began to do literary research and he continued to contribute to La Revue contemporaine. Port-Royal, probably Sainte-Beuves masterpiece, is an history of the Jansenist abbey of Port-Royal-des-Champs. It not only influenced the historiography of religious belief, i. e. the method of research, but also the philosophy of history. He was made Senator in 1865, in which capacity he distinguished himself by his pleas for freedom of speech, according to Jules Amédée Barbey dAurevilly, Sainte-Beuve was a clever man with the temper of a turkey. In his last years, he was a sufferer and lived much in retirement. One of Sainte-Beuves critical contentions was that, in order to understand an artist and his work, marcel Proust took issue with this notion and refuted it in a set of essays, Contre Sainte-Beuve. Proust developed the ideas first voiced in those essays in À la recherche du temps perdu, friedrich Nietzsche, actually an avowed opponent of Sainte-Beuve, prompted in 1880 the wife of his friend Franz Overbeck, Ida Overbeck, to translate the Causeries du lundi into German. Until then, Sainte-Beuve was never published in German despite his great importance in France, since it was considered representative of a French way of thinking detested in Germany, Ida Overbecks translation appeared in 1880 under the title Die Menschen des XVIII. Nietzsche wrote to Ida Overbeck on August 18,1880, An hour ago I received the Die Menschen des XVIII, jahrhunderts, It is just a marvellous book. Ida Overbecks translation is an important document of the transfer between Germany and France in a period of strong tension, but it was largely ignored. It was not until 2014 that a critical and annotated edition of this appeared in print. Non-fiction Tableau Historique et Critique de la Poésie Française et du Théâtre Français au XVIe Siècle, poetry Vie, Poésies et Pensées de Joseph Delorme
Sainte-Beuve
–
Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve
Sainte-Beuve
–
Commemorative plaque, 11 Rue du Montparnasse, Paris.
11.
July Revolution
–
Supporters of the Bourbon would be called Legitimists, and supporters of Louis Philippe Orléanists. On 16 September 1824, Charles X ascended to the throne of France and he was the younger brother of Louis XVIII, who, upon the defeat of Napoleon I, and by agreement of the Allied powers, had been installed as King of France. Both Louis and Charles ruled by right rather than Revolution. Upon the abdication of Napoleon in 1814, continental Europe, the Congress of Vienna met to redraw the continents political map. Another very influential person at the Congress was Charles Maurice de Talleyrand, although France was considered an enemy state, Talleyrand was allowed to attend the Congress because he claimed that he had only cooperated with Napoleon under duress. Talleyrand proposed that Europe be restored to its borders and governments. France returned to its 1789 borders and the House of Bourbon, the Congress however forced Louis to grant the Charte constitutionnelle française, the French Constitution otherwise known as La Charte. This document was the trigger of the July Revolution. On 16 September 1824, after an illness of several months. Therefore, his brother, Charles, aged 66, inherited the throne of France. On 27 September Charles X as he was now known, made his entry into Paris to popular acclaim. But eight months later, the mood of the capital had sharply worsened in its opinion of the new king, the causes of this dramatic shift in public opinion were many, but the main two were, The imposition of the death penalty for anyone profaning the Eucharist. The provisions for financial indemnities for properties confiscated by the 1789 Revolution and these indemnities to be paid to any one, whether noble or non-noble, who had been declared enemies of the Revolution. Critics of the first accused the king and his new ministry of pandering to the Catholic Church, the second matter, that of financial indemnities, was far more opportunistic than the first. But opponents, many of whom were frustrated Bonapartists, began a campaign that Charles X was only proposing this in order to shame those who had not emigrated. Both measures, they claimed, were nothing more than clever subterfuge meant to bring about the destruction of La Charte and this, too, was about to change. On 12 April, propelled by both genuine conviction and the spirit of independence, the Chamber of Deputies roundly rejected the proposal to change the inheritance laws. The popular newspaper Le Constitutionnel pronounced this refusal a victory over the forces of counter-revolutionaries, the popularity of both the Chamber of Peers and the Chamber of Deputies skyrocketed, and the popularity of the king and his ministry dropped
July Revolution
–
Charles X in coronation robes
July Revolution
–
Scenes of July 1830, a painting by
Léon Cogniet alluding to the July revolution of 1830.
July Revolution
–
Taking of the
Hôtel de Ville (revolutionaries went there in 1789, and later 1848 and 1870), by Amédée Bourgeois
July Revolution
–
Battle outside the Hôtel de Ville, by Jean Victor Schnetz
12.
Grotesque
–
In art, performance, and literature, however, grotesque may also refer to something that simultaneously invokes in an audience a feeling of uncomfortable bizarreness as well as sympathetic pity. More specifically, the forms on Gothic buildings, when not used as drain-spouts, should not be called gargoyles. The word first was used of paintings found on the walls of basements of Roman ruins that were called at that time Le Grotte due to their appearance. Spreading from Italian to the other European languages, the term was used largely interchangeably with arabesque and moresque for types of decorative patterns using curving foliage elements. Rémi Astruc has argued that there is an immense variety of motifs and figures. Beyond the current understanding of the grotesque as an aesthetic category, moreover, Astruc identifies the grotesque as a crucial, and potentially universal, anthropological device that societies have used to conceptualize alterity and change. Such designs were fashionable in ancient Rome, as fresco wall decoration, floor mosaics, the Roman wall decorations in fresco and delicate stucco were a revelation. The first appearance of the word appears in a contract of 1502 for the Piccolomini Library attached to the duomo of Siena. Light scrolling grotesques could be ordered by confining them within the framing of a pilaster to give them more structure, giovanni da Udine took up the theme of grotesques in decorating the Villa Madama, the most influential of the new Roman villas. In the 16th century, such artistic license and irrationality was controversial matter, more familiar material for grotesques could be drawn from Ovids Metamorphoses. This large array provided a repertoire of elements that were the basis for later artists across Europe, counter Reformation writers on the arts, notably Cardinal Gabriele Paleotti, bishop of Bologna, turned upon grottesche with a righteous vengeance. Vasari, echoing Vitruvius, described the style as follows, Grotesques are a type of extremely licentious, other 16th-century writers on grottesche included Daniele Barbaro, Pirro Ligorio and Gian Paolo Lomazzo. In the meantime, through the medium of engravings the grotesque mode of surface ornament passed into the European artistic repertory of the 16th century, from Spain to Poland. Later Mannerist versions, especially in engraving, tended to lose that initial lightness and be more densely filled than the airy well-spaced style used by the Romans. Soon grottesche appeared in marquetry, in maiolica produced above all at Urbino from the late 1520s, then in book illustration, in the 17th and 18th centuries the grotesque encompasses a wide field of teratology and artistic experimentation. The monstrous, for instance, often occurs as the notion of play, the sportiveness of the grotesque category can be seen in the notion of the preternatural category of the lusus naturae, in natural history writings and in cabinets of curiosities. The last vestiges of romance, such as the marvellous also provide opportunities for the presentation of the grotesque in, for instance, the mixed form of the novel was commonly described as grotesque - see for instance Fieldings comic epic poem in prose. Grotesque ornament received an impetus from new discoveries of original Roman frescoes and stucchi at Pompeii
Grotesque
–
Mother Nature is surrounded by grottesche in this fresco detail from
Villa d'Este.
Grotesque
–
Renaissance grotesque motifs in assorted formats.
Grotesque
–
Roman frescos in Nero's
Domus Aurea
Grotesque
–
Ceiling of the
Piccolomini Library
13.
Notre Dame de Paris
–
Notre-Dame de Paris, also known as Notre-Dame Cathedral or simply Notre-Dame, is a medieval Catholic cathedral on the Île de la Cité in the fourth arrondissement of Paris, France. The cathedral is considered to be one of the finest examples of French Gothic architecture. The naturalism of its sculptures and stained glass are in contrast with earlier Romanesque architecture, as the cathedral of the Archdiocese of Paris, Notre-Dame contains the cathedra of the Archbishop of Paris, currently Cardinal André Vingt-Trois. The cathedral treasury contains a reliquary, which some of Catholicisms most important relics, including the purported Crown of Thorns, a fragment of the True Cross. In the 1790s, Notre-Dame suffered desecration in the phase of the French Revolution when much of its religious imagery was damaged or destroyed. An extensive restoration supervised by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc began in 1845, a project of further restoration and maintenance began in 1991. The Notre-Dame de Paris was among the first buildings in the world to use the flying buttress, in response, the cathedrals architects built supports around the outside walls, and later additions continued the pattern. The total surface area is 5,500 m², many small individually crafted statues were placed around the outside to serve as column supports and water spouts. Among these are the famous gargoyles, designed for water run-off, the statues were originally colored as was most of the exterior. The cathedral was complete by 1345. It is possible therefore that the faults with the structure were exaggerated by the Bishop to help justify the rebuilding in a newer style. According to legend, Sully had a vision of a new cathedral for Paris. To begin the construction, the bishop had several houses demolished and had a new road built to transport materials for the rest of the cathedral. Construction began in 1163 during the reign of Louis VII, however, both were at the ceremony. Bishop de Sully went on to devote most of his life, construction of the choir took from 1163 until around 1177 and the new High Altar was consecrated in 1182. By this stage, the facade had also been laid out. Numerous architects worked on the site over the period of construction, between 1210 and 1220, the fourth architect oversaw the construction of the level with the rose window and the great halls beneath the towers. Shortly afterwards Pierre de Montreuil executed a similar scheme on the southern transept,1160 Maurice de Sully orders the original cathedral demolished
Notre Dame de Paris
–
The southern facade of Notre-Dame de Paris
Notre Dame de Paris
–
The western facade illuminated at night
Notre Dame de Paris
–
The spire and east side of the cathedral
Notre Dame de Paris
–
The Archaeological Crypt of Notre-Dame de Paris.
14.
Strix (mythology)
–
This is also an incorrect spelling of the true owl genus Strix. Strix, in the Ancient Roman and Greek legends was a bird of ill omen, product of metamorphosis and they are birds with long golden beaks that they use to suck the blood of infants, their favorite victims. They also have wings, usually red, and four black legs and their eyes are yellow and round, without pupils. The earliest recorded tale of the strix is from the lost Ornithologia of the Greek author Boios and this tells the story of Polyphonte and her two sons Agrios and Oreios, who were punished for their cannibalism. Polyphonte became a strix that cries by night, without food or drink, with head below and tips of feet above, a harbinger of war and civil strife to men. The first Latin allusion is in Plautuss Pseudolus, dated to 191 BC, in which a cook, describing the cuisine of his inferiors, horace, in his Epodes, makes the strixs magical properties clear, its feathers are an ingredient in a love potion. Seneca the Younger, in his Hercules Furens, shows the striges dwelling on the outskirts of Tartarus, though descriptions abound, the concept of the strix was nonetheless vague. In Romanian, strigăt means scream, strigoaică is the name of the Romanian feminine vampire, both can scream loudly, especially when they become poltergeists - a trait they have in common with the banshees. Strigăt is also the Romanian name of the owl and of the deaths-head hawkmoth. Strix is the name of a stone in RPG/TBS video game Ash of Gods, Redemption Lamia Lilith Strigoi Vampires in popular culture#Strix Stirge Oliphant. The Story of the Strix, Ancient, Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association. Carna, Proca and the Strix on the Kalends of June, by Christopher Michael McDonough, in Transactions of the American Philological Association, Vol.127
Strix (mythology)
–
The appearance and calls of owls, such as the
Eurasian scops owl, may have influenced Greek ideas of the blood-drinking strix.
15.
Jean-Baptiste Lassus
–
Jean-Baptiste-Antoine Lassus was a French architect who became an expert in restoration or recreation of medieval architecture. Jean-Baptiste-Antoine Lassus was born in Paris on 19 March 1807 and he studied at the Collège Stanislas de Paris, and in 1823 was given drawing lessons by Christophe Civeton. In 1828 he was admitted to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and he left the school in 1830 and joined the architectural studio of Henri Labrouste. Lassus submitted a plan to the Salon in 1833 for rebuilding the Tuileries Palace to return to the design of Philibert de lOrme. In 1835 he proposed restoration of the Gothic-style Sainte-Chapelle and he submitted a plan to the Salon in 1836 to restore the refectory of Saint-Martin-des-Champs Priory. Lassus took commissions to design churches and extensions to convents, in 1835 he began to restore Saint-Séverin, Paris. In 1836 Lassus and Félix Duban were given the task of restoring Sainte-Chapelle and he worked on this project for the rest of his life, concentrating on the spire and the decorations of the interior, which he restored to their earlier form. In 1837 he was named architect for the restoration of Saint-Séverin, in 1839 Lassus and Étienne-Hippolyte Godde were given the task of restoring Saint-Germain lAuxerrois. In 1840 Lassus was asked to undertaken construction of the Basilique Saint-Nicolas de Nantes, in 1841 he built the tomb of the Abbé Charles-Michel de lÉpée in Saint-Roch, Paris. In 1843 Lassus and Eugène Viollet-le-Duc won the competition for restoration of Notre Dame de Paris against Jean-Charles Danjoy and they replaced the old sculpture with new works, often moving the earlier sculptures to museums. Lassus was asked to build the petit séminaire on the rue Notre-Dame des champs in 1845, in 1848 he was asked to serve as an expert at the site of Nantes Cathedral, and was appointed diocesan architect of Chartres and Le Mans. Lassus and Louis Gabriel Esmonnot were commissioned to build the Sacré-Cœur in Moulins in 1849, in 1850 Lassus made the first studies for Saint-Pierre in Dijon. In 1852 he started a project to enlarge Moulins Cathedral, in 1853 he made initial studies for Saint-Jean-Baptiste in Belleville, Paris. In 1855 he was commissioned to build the church in Cusset, Lassus contracted a disease of the liver, which he neglected. He died on 15 July 1857 in Vichy, where he had gone in search of a cure and his funeral was held in Notre-Dame on 20 July 1857. His tomb was designed by Viollet-le-Duc, Lassus was critical of the Académie française, which would only recognize pagan Greek and Roman architecture, which he saw as foreign imports. He said of Greek architecture that it did not suit the French religion or climate and he strongly favored Gothic architecture, a Christian style that had originated in France. He was a purist, would only use historical building materials and he believed that the buildings of the first Gothic period were rational and functional, the peak of French architecture
Jean-Baptiste Lassus
–
Lassus from the Album de Villard de Honnecourt, Paris, 1858
Jean-Baptiste Lassus
–
Basilique Saint-Nicolas de Nantes
Jean-Baptiste Lassus
–
Église du Sacré-Cœur de Moulins
16.
Mont Saint-Michel
–
Le Mont-Saint-Michel is an island commune in Normandy, France. It is located one kilometre off the countrys northwestern coast. As of 2009, the island has a population of 44, the island has held strategic fortifications since ancient times and since the 8th century AD has been the seat of the monastery from which it draws its name. The Mont remained unconquered during the Hundred Years War, a small garrison fended off an attack by the English in 1433. The reverse benefits of its defence were not lost on Louis XI. Thereafter the abbey began to be used regularly as a jail during the Ancien Régime. One of Frances most recognizable landmarks, visited by more than 3 million people each year, Mont Saint-Michel, over 60 buildings within the commune are protected in France as monuments historiques. Now a rocky island, the Mont occupied dry land in prehistoric times. As sea levels rose, erosion reshaped the landscape, and several outcrops of granite emerged in the bay. These included Lillemer, the Mont-Dol, Tombelaine, and Mont Tombe, the Mont has a circumference of about 960 metres and its highest point is 92 metres above sea level. The tides can vary greatly, at roughly 14 metres between high and low water marks, popularly nicknamed St. Polderisation and occasional flooding have created salt marsh meadows that were found to be ideally suited to grazing sheep. The connection between Mont Saint-Michel and the mainland has changed over the centuries, previously connected by a tidal causeway, this was converted into a raised causeway in 1879, preventing the tide from scouring the silt around the mount. These factors all encouraged silting-up of the bay, the construction of the dam began in 2009. The project also includes the removal of the causeway and its car park. Since 28 April 2012 the new car park on the mainland has been located 2.5 kilometres from the island, visitors can walk or use shuttles to cross the causeway. On 22 July 2014 the new bridge by architect Dietmar Feichtinger was opened to the public, the light bridge allows the waters to flow freely around the island and improves the efficiency of the now operational dam. The project which cost €209 million was opened by President François Hollande. On rare occasions tidal circumstances produce an extremely high supertide, the new bridge was completely submerged on 21 March 2015, by the highest sea level for at least 18 years, as crowds gathered to snap photos
Mont Saint-Michel
–
Le Mont Saint-Michel
Mont Saint-Michel
–
Low tide in 2005
Mont Saint-Michel
–
Mont Saint-Michel in 2014 with the new bridge
Mont Saint-Michel
–
Inside the walls of Mont Saint-Michel
17.
Carcassonne
–
Carcassonne is a fortified French town in the Aude department, of which it is the prefecture, in the Region of Occitanie. Inhabited since the Neolithic period, Carcassonne is located in the Aude plain between historic trade routes, linking the Atlantic to the Mediterranean sea and the Massif Central to the Pyrénées and its strategic location led successive rulers to expand its fortifications until the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659. The city is famous for the Cité de Carcassonne, a medieval fortress restored by the theorist and architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc in 1853, consequently, Carcassonne relies heavily on tourism but also counts manufacture and wine-making as some of its other key economic sectors. Carcassonne is located in the south of France, about 80 kilometres east from the city of Toulouse and its strategic location between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea has been known since the neolithic era. The towns area is about 65 km2, which is larger than the numerous small towns in the Aude department. The rivers Aude, Fresquel and the Canal du Midi flow through the town, the Volcae Tectosages fortified the oppidum. The folk etymology – involving a châtelaine named Carcas, a ruse ending a siege, Carcas on a column near the Narbonne Gate, is of modern invention. The name can be derived as an augmentative of the name Carcas, Carcassonne became strategically identified when Romans fortified the hilltop around 100 BC and eventually made the colonia of Julia Carsaco, later Carcasum. The main part of the courses of the northern ramparts dates from Gallo-Roman times. In 462 the Romans officially ceded Septimania to the Visigothic king Theodoric II who had held Carcassonne since 453 and he built more fortifications at Carcassonne, which was a frontier post on the northern marches, traces of them still stand. Theodoric is thought to have begun the predecessor of the basilica that is now dedicated to Saint Nazaire, in 508 the Visigoths successfully foiled attacks by the Frankish king Clovis. A medieval fiefdom, the county of Carcassonne, controlled the city and it was often united with the County of Razès. The origins of Carcassonne as a county probably lie in local representatives of the Visigoths, Bello founded a dynasty, the Bellonids, which would rule many honores in Septimania and Catalonia for three centuries. In 1067, Carcassonne became the property of Raimond-Bernard Trencavel, viscount of Albi and Nîmes, through his marriage with Ermengard, in the following centuries, the Trencavel family allied in succession either with the counts of Barcelona or of Toulouse. They built the Château Comtal and the Basilica of St. Nazaire, in 1096, Pope Urban II blessed the foundation stones of the new cathedral. Carcassonne became famous for its role in the Albigensian Crusades, when the city was a stronghold of Occitan Cathars, in August 1209 the crusading army of the Papal Legate, Abbot Arnaud Amalric, forced its citizens to surrender. Raymond-Roger de Trencavel was imprisoned whilst negotiating his citys surrender and died in mysterious circumstances three months later in his own dungeon, simon De Montfort was appointed the new viscount. In 1240, Trencavels son tried to reconquer his old domain, the city submitted to the rule of the kingdom of France in 1247
Carcassonne
–
Panorama of the
Cité de Carcassonne
Carcassonne
–
Cathars being expelled from Carcassonne in 1209
Carcassonne
–
View of Carcassonne in the late 19th century.
18.
French Revolution
–
Through the Revolutionary Wars, it unleashed a wave of global conflicts that extended from the Caribbean to the Middle East. Historians widely regard the Revolution as one of the most important events in human history, the causes of the French Revolution are complex and are still debated among historians. Following the Seven Years War and the American Revolutionary War, the French government was deeply in debt, Years of bad harvests leading up to the Revolution also inflamed popular resentment of the privileges enjoyed by the clergy and the aristocracy. Demands for change were formulated in terms of Enlightenment ideals and contributed to the convocation of the Estates-General in May 1789, a central event of the first stage, in August 1789, was the abolition of feudalism and the old rules and privileges left over from the Ancien Régime. The next few years featured political struggles between various liberal assemblies and right-wing supporters of the intent on thwarting major reforms. The Republic was proclaimed in September 1792 after the French victory at Valmy, in a momentous event that led to international condemnation, Louis XVI was executed in January 1793. External threats closely shaped the course of the Revolution, internally, popular agitation radicalised the Revolution significantly, culminating in the rise of Maximilien Robespierre and the Jacobins. Large numbers of civilians were executed by revolutionary tribunals during the Terror, after the Thermidorian Reaction, an executive council known as the Directory assumed control of the French state in 1795. The rule of the Directory was characterised by suspended elections, debt repudiations, financial instability, persecutions against the Catholic clergy, dogged by charges of corruption, the Directory collapsed in a coup led by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1799. The modern era has unfolded in the shadow of the French Revolution, almost all future revolutionary movements looked back to the Revolution as their predecessor. The values and institutions of the Revolution dominate French politics to this day, the French Revolution differed from other revolutions in being not merely national, for it aimed at benefiting all humanity. Globally, the Revolution accelerated the rise of republics and democracies and it became the focal point for the development of all modern political ideologies, leading to the spread of liberalism, radicalism, nationalism, socialism, feminism, and secularism, among many others. The Revolution also witnessed the birth of total war by organising the resources of France, historians have pointed to many events and factors within the Ancien Régime that led to the Revolution. Over the course of the 18th century, there emerged what the philosopher Jürgen Habermas called the idea of the sphere in France. A perfect example would be the Palace of Versailles which was meant to overwhelm the senses of the visitor and convince one of the greatness of the French state and Louis XIV. Starting in the early 18th century saw the appearance of the sphere which was critical in that both sides were active. In France, the emergence of the public sphere outside of the control of the saw the shift from Versailles to Paris as the cultural capital of France. In the 1750s, during the querelle des bouffons over the question of the quality of Italian vs, in 1782, Louis-Sébastien Mercier wrote, The word court no longer inspires awe amongst us as in the time of Louis XIV
French Revolution
–
The
August Insurrection in 1792 precipitated the last days of the monarchy.
French Revolution
–
The French government faced a fiscal crisis in the 1780s, and King Louis XVI was blamed for mishandling these affairs.
French Revolution
–
Caricature of the Third Estate carrying the First Estate (clergy) and the Second Estate (nobility) on its back.
French Revolution
–
The meeting of the Estates General on 5 May 1789 at Versailles.
19.
Second French Empire
–
The Second French Empire was the Imperial Bonapartist regime of Napoleon III from 1852 to 1870, between the Second Republic and the Third Republic, in France. The structure of the French government during the Second Empire was little changed from the First, but Emperor Napoleon III stressed his own imperial role as the foundation of the government. He had so often, while in prison or in exile and his answer was to organize a system of government based on the principles of the Napoleonic Idea. This meant that the emperor, the elect of the people as the representative of the democracy, ruled supreme. He himself drew power and legitimacy from his role as representative of the great Napoleon I of France, the anti-parliamentary French Constitution of 1852 instituted by Napoleon III on 14 January 1852, was largely a repetition of that of 1848. All executive power was entrusted to the emperor, who, as head of state, was responsible to the people. The people of the Empire, lacking democratic rights, were to rely on the benevolence of the rather than on the benevolence of politicians. He was to nominate the members of the council of state, whose duty it was to prepare the laws, and of the senate, a body permanently established as a constituent part of the empire. One innovation was made, namely, that the Legislative Body was elected by universal suffrage and this new political change was rapidly followed by the same consequence as had attended that of Brumaire. The press was subjected to a system of cautionnements and avertissements, in order to counteract the opposition of individuals, a surveillance of suspects was instituted. In the same way public instruction was strictly supervised, the teaching of philosophy was suppressed in the lycées, for seven years France had no democratic life. The Empire governed by a series of plebiscites, up to 1857 the Opposition did not exist, from then till 1860 it was reduced to five members, Darimon, Émile Ollivier, Hénon, Jules Favre and Ernest Picard. On 2 December 1851 Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, who had been elected President of the Republic and he thus became sole ruler of France, and re-established universal suffrage, previously abolished by the Assembly. His decisions and the extension of his mandate for 10 years were popularly endorsed by a referendum later that month that attracted an implausible 92 percent support. A new constitution was enacted in January 1852 which made Louis-Napoléon president for 10 years, however, he was not content with merely being an authoritarian president. Almost as soon as he signed the new document into law, in response to officially-inspired requests for the return of the empire, the Senate scheduled a second referendum in November, which passed with 97 percent support. As with the December 1851 referendum, most of the yes votes were manufactured out of thin air, the empire was formally re-established on 2 December 1852, and the Prince-President became Napoléon III, Emperor of the French. The constitution concentrated so much power in his hands that the only changes were to replace the word president with the word emperor
Second French Empire
–
Napoléon III
Second French Empire
–
Flag
Second French Empire
–
The official declaration of the Second Empire, at the
Hôtel de Ville de Paris, on December 2, 1852.
20.
Reliquary
–
A reliquary is a container for relics. These may be the purported or actual physical remains of saints, such as bones, pieces of clothing, the authenticity of any given relic is often a matter of debate, for that reason, some churches require documentation of the relics provenance. Relics have long been important to Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, in these cultures, reliquaries are often presented in shrines, churches, or temples to which the faithful make pilgrimages in order to gain blessings. Relics are venerated in the Oriental Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, reliquaries provide a means of protecting and displaying relics. While frequently taking the form of caskets, they range in size from simple pendants or rings to very elaborate ossuaries, ivory was widely used in the Middle Ages for reliquaries, its pure white color an indication of the holy status of its contents. These objects constituted a form of artistic production across Europe. Many were designed with portability in mind, often being exhibited in public or carried in procession on the saints feast day or on holy days. Pilgrimages often centered on the veneration of relics, the faithful often venerate relics by bowing before the reliquary or kissing it. Those churches which observe the veneration of relics make a distinction between the honor given to the saints and the worship that is due to God alone. The feretrum was a form of reliquary or shrine containing the sacred effigies. In the late Middle Ages the craze for relics, many now fraudulent, became extreme, 16th-century reformers such as Martin Luther opposed the use of relics since many had no proof of historic authenticity, and they objected to the cult of saints. Nonetheless, the use and manufacture of reliquaries continues to this day, especially in Roman Catholic, post-Reformation reliquaries have tended to take the form of glass-sided caskets to display relics such as the bodies of saints. The earliest reliquaries were essentially boxes, either simply box-shaped or based on an architectural design and these latter are known by the French term chasse, and typical examples from the 12th to 14th century have wooden frameworks with gilt-copper plaques nailed on, decorated in champlevé enamel. Limoges was the largest centre of production, NB the English usage differs from that of the French châsse, relics of the True Cross became very popular from the 9th century onwards and were housed in magnificent gold and silver cross-shaped reliquaries, decorated with enamels and precious stones. Similarly, the bones of saints were often housed in reliquaries that recalled the shape of the body part. A philatory is a transparent reliquary designed to contain and exhibit the bones and this style of reliquary has a viewing portal by which to view the relic contained inside. During the later Middle Ages, the form, mostly used for consecrated hosts, was sometimes used for reliquaries. These housed the relic in a crystal or glass capsule mounted on a column above a base
Reliquary
–
Reliquaries holding relics of the
Buddha from a
stupa in
Kanishka,
Peshawar, Pakistan, now in
Mandalay, Burma. Teresa Merrigan, 2005
Reliquary
–
A view inside the shrine of Saint
Boniface of Dokkum in the
hermit-church of
Warfhuizen in the
Netherlands. The little folded paper on the left contains a bone-fragment of Saint
Benedict of Nursia, the folded paper on the right a piece of the
habit of Saint
Bernard of Clairvaux. The large bone in the middle (about 5 cm. in length) is the actual relic of Saint Boniface.
Reliquary
–
Relic of the Precious Blood,
Bruges. Made from pure gold and precious stones.
Reliquary
–
Franco-Flemish Gothic philatory for a finger bone, late 15th century (
Walters Art Museum)
21.
Crown of Thorns
–
According to three of the canonical Gospels a woven crown of thorns was placed on the head of Jesus during the events leading up to the crucifixion of Jesus. It was one of the instruments of the Passion, employed by Jesus captors both to cause him pain and to mock his claim of authority. It is mentioned in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and John and is alluded to by the early Church Fathers, such as Clement of Alexandria, Origen. In later centuries, relics believed by many to be all or part of the Crown of Thorns have been venerated, a few writers of the first six centuries AD speak of a relic known to be still in existence and venerated by the faithful. St. Cassiodorus, when commenting on Psalm lxxxvi, speaks of the crown of thorns among the relics which are the glory of the earthly Jerusalem. There, he says, we may behold the thorny crown, from these fragments of evidence and others of later date, it is likely that a purported crown of thorns was venerated at Jerusalem from the fifth century for several hundred years. Francois de Mély supposed that the crown was not transferred to Byzantium until about 1063. Eight of these are said to have been there at the consecration of the basilica of Aachen by Pope Leo III. The presence of the Pope at the consecration is a later legend, four were given to Saint-Corneille of Compiègne in 877 by Charles the Bald. Hugh the Great, Duke of the Franks, sent one to the Anglo-Saxon King Athelstan in 927, on the occasion of marriage negotiations. Another was presented to a Spanish princess about 1160, and again another was taken to Andechs Abbey in Germany in the year 1200. In 1238, Baldwin II, the Latin Emperor of Constantinople, anxious to support for his tottering empire, offered the crown of thorns to Louis IX. It was then in the hands of the Venetians as security for a heavy loan, new reliquaries were provided for the relic, one commissioned by Napoleon, another, in jewelled rock crystal and more suitably Gothic, was made to the designs of Eugene Viollet-le-Duc. In 2001, when the treasures from the Sainte-Chapelle were exhibited at the Louvre. Pope John Paul II translated it personally to the Sainte-Chapelle during World Youth Day, the relic can only be seen on the first Friday of every month, when it is brought out for a special veneration mass, as well as each Friday during Lent. See also Feast of the Crown of Thorns, the Catholic Encyclopedia said, Authorities are agreed that a sort of helmet of thorns must have been plaited by the Roman soldiers, this band of rushes being employed to hold the thorns together. None of these now remain at Paris, some small fragments of rush are also preserved. This reaches the height of fifteen or twenty feet and is growing in abundance by the wayside around Jerusalem
Crown of Thorns
–
Christ Carrying the Cross as portrayed by
El Greco, 1580
Crown of Thorns
–
For other uses, see
Crown of Thorns (disambiguation).
Crown of Thorns
–
Christ in the crown of thorns. Anonymous (Northern Germany)
Crown of Thorns
–
The Crown of Thorns by
Maarten van Heemskerck
22.
Napoleon III
–
Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte was the only President of the French Second Republic and, as Napoleon III, the Emperor of the Second French Empire. He was the nephew and heir of Napoleon I and he was the first President of France to be elected by a direct popular vote. He remains the longest-serving French head of state since the French Revolution, during the first years of the Empire, Napoleons government imposed censorship and harsh repressive measures against his opponents. Some six thousand were imprisoned or sent to penal colonies until 1859, thousands more went into voluntary exile abroad, including Victor Hugo. From 1862 onwards, he relaxed government censorship, and his came to be known as the Liberal Empire. Many of his opponents returned to France and became members of the National Assembly, Napoleon III is best known today for his grand reconstruction of Paris, carried out by his prefect of the Seine, Baron Haussmann. He launched similar public works projects in Marseille, Lyon, Napoleon III modernized the French banking system, greatly expanded and consolidated the French railway system, and made the French merchant marine the second largest in the world. He promoted the building of the Suez Canal and established modern agriculture, Napoleon III negotiated the 1860 Cobden–Chevalier free trade agreement with Britain and similar agreements with Frances other European trading partners. Social reforms included giving French workers the right to strike and the right to organize, womens education greatly expanded, as did the list of required subjects in public schools. In foreign policy, Napoleon III aimed to reassert French influence in Europe and he was a supporter of popular sovereignty and of nationalism. In Europe, he allied with Britain and defeated Russia in the Crimean War and his regime assisted Italian unification and, in doing so, annexed Savoy and the County of Nice to France, at the same time, his forces defended the Papal States against annexation by Italy. Napoleon doubled the area of the French overseas empire in Asia, the Pacific, on the other hand, his armys intervention in Mexico which aimed to create a Second Mexican Empire under French protection ended in failure. Beginning in 1866, Napoleon had to face the power of Prussia. In July 1870, Napoleon entered the Franco-Prussian War without allies, the French army was rapidly defeated and Napoleon III was captured at the Battle of Sedan. The French Third Republic was proclaimed in Paris, and Napoleon went into exile in England, charles-Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, later known as Louis Napoleon and then Napoleon III, was born in Paris on the night of 20–21 April 1808. His presumed father was Louis Bonaparte, the brother of Napoleon Bonaparte. His mother was Hortense de Beauharnais, the daughter by the first marriage of Napoleons wife Joséphine de Beauharnais, as empress, Joséphine proposed the marriage as a way to produce an heir for the Emperor, who agreed, as Joséphine was by then infertile. Louis married Hortense when he was twenty-four and she was nineteen and they had a difficult relationship, and only lived together for brief periods
Napoleon III
–
Napoleon III
Napoleon III
–
Louis Bonaparte (1778–1846), the younger brother of
Napoleon Bonaparte, the King of Holland, and father of Napoleon III.
Napoleon III
–
Hortense de Beauharnais (1783–1837), the mother of Napoleon III, in 1808, the year Napoleon III was born.
Napoleon III
–
The lakeside house at Arenenberg, Switzerland, where Napoleon III spent much of his youth and exile.
23.
Sainte-Chapelle
–
Begun some time after 1238 and consecrated on 26 April 1248, the Sainte-Chapelle is considered among the highest achievements of the Rayonnant period of Gothic architecture. It was commissioned by King Louis IX of France to house his collection of Passion relics, along with the Conciergerie, the Sainte-Chapelle is one of the earliest surviving buildings of the Capetian royal palace on the Île de la Cité. Although damaged during the French Revolution, and restored in the 19th century, the relics arrived in Paris in August 1239, carried from Venice by two Dominican friars. For the final stage of their journey they were carried by the King himself, barefoot and dressed as a penitent, the relics were stored in a large and elaborate silver chest, the Grand-Chasse, on which Louis spent a further 100,000 livres. The entire chapel, by contrast, cost 40,000 livres to build, until it was completed in 1248, the relics were housed at chapels at the Château de Vincennes and a specially built chapel at the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye. In 1246, fragments of the True Cross and the Holy Lance were added to Louis collection, the chapel was consecrated on 26 April 1248 and Louis relics were moved to their new home with great ceremony. As well as serving as a place of worship, the Sainte-Chapelle played an important role in the political and cultural ambitions of King Louis and his successors. Just as the Emperor could pass privately from his palace into the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, the royal chapel is a prime example of the phase of Gothic architectural style called Rayonnant, marked by its sense of weightlessness and strong vertical emphasis. It stands squarely upon a lower chapel, which served as church for all the inhabitants of the palace. The king was recognized as a saint by the Catholic Church. The internal division into upper and lower chapels is clearly marked on the outside by a string-course, despite its decoration, the exterior is relatively simple and austere, devoid of flying buttresses or major sculpture and giving little hint of the richness within. No designer-builder is named in the archives concerned with the construction, modern scholarship rejects this attribution in favour of Jean de Chelles or Thomas de Cormont, while Robert Branner saw in the design the hand of an unidentified master mason from Amiens. As has often been argued however the influence on its overall design seems to have come from contemporary metalwork. The Parisian palatine chapel, built to house a reliquary, was itself like a precious reliquary turned inside out, although the interior is dominated by the stained glass, every inch of the remaining wall surface and the vault was also richly coloured and decorated. Above the dado level, mounted on the shafts that separate the great windows, are 12 larger-than-life-sized sculpted stone figures representing the 12 Apostles. Each carries a disk marked with the crosses that were traditionally marked on the pillars of a church at its consecration. Niches on the north and south sides of the chapel are the private oratories of the king and of his mother, fifteen huge mid-13th-century windows fill the nave and apse, while a large rose window with Flamboyant tracery dominates the western wall. Despite some damage the windows display a clear iconographical programme, the three windows of the eastern apse illustrate the New Testament, featuring scenes of The Passion with the Infancy of Christ and the Life of John the Evangelist
Sainte-Chapelle
–
Sainte-Chapelle, upper level interior
Sainte-Chapelle
–
The Sainte-Chapelle rises above the rooflines of the royal palace. Miniature by the
Limbourg brothers, ca 1400
Sainte-Chapelle
–
View of the chapel from approximate position of the Palace gateway (lower parts obscured by much later buildings)
Sainte-Chapelle
–
Stained Glass Interior
24.
Basilica of St. Denis
–
The Basilica of Saint Denis is a large medieval abbey church in the city of Saint-Denis, now a northern suburb of Paris. The building is of unique importance historically and architecturally as its choir, completed in 1144, the site originated as a Gallo-Roman cemetery in late Roman times. The archeological remains still lie beneath the cathedral, the people buried there seem to have had a faith that was a mix of Christian and pre-Christian beliefs, around 475 St. Genevieve purchased some land and built Saint-Denys de la Chapelle. In 636 on the orders of Dagobert I the relics of Saint Denis, the relics of St-Denis, which had been transferred to the parish church of the town in 1795, were brought back again to the abbey in 1819. Saint-Denis soon became the church of a growing monastic complex. In the 12th century the Abbot Suger rebuilt portions of the church using innovative structural. In doing so, he is said to have created the first truly Gothic building, the abbey church became a cathedral in 1966 and is the seat of the Bishop of Saint-Denis, Pascal Michel Ghislain Delannoy. Although known as the Basilica of St Denis, the cathedral has not been granted the title of Minor Basilica by the Vatican, Saint Denis, a patron saint of France, became the first bishop of Paris. A martyrium was erected on the site of his grave, which became a place of pilgrimage during the fifth and sixth centuries. Dagobert, the king of the Franks, refounded the church as the Abbey of Saint Denis, Dagobert also commissioned a new shrine to house the saints remains, which was created by his chief councillor, Eligius, a goldsmith by training. He composed a crest and a magnificent frontal and surrounded the throne of the altar with golden axes in a circle and he placed golden apples there, round and jeweled. He made a pulpit and a gate of silver and a roof for the throne of the altar on silver axes and he made a covering in the place before the tomb and fabricated an outside altar at the feet of the holy martyr. So much industry did he lavish there, at the kings request, the Basilica of St Denis ranks as an architectural landmark—as the first major structure of which a substantial part was designed and built in the Gothic style. Both stylistically and structurally, it heralded the change from Romanesque architecture to Gothic architecture, before the term Gothic came into common use, it was known as the French Style. As it now stands, the church is a cruciform building of basilica form. It has an aisle on the northern side formed of a row of chapels. The west front has three portals, a window and one tower, on the southern side. The eastern end, which is built over a crypt, is apsidal, surrounded by an ambulatory, the basilica retains stained glass of many periods, including exceptional modern glass, and a set of twelve misericords
Basilica of St. Denis
–
West façade of Saint Denis
Basilica of St. Denis
–
West façade of Saint Denis, before the dismantling of the north tower (c. 1844 – 1845)
Basilica of St. Denis
–
15th-century painting by the
Master of Saint Giles, showing St Denis saying mass before
Charlemagne or
Charles Martel with what is thought to be a largely accurate view of the abbey with a
crux gemmata given by
Charles the Bald and gold altar frontal, both destroyed in the Revolution.
Basilica of St. Denis
–
The north transept rose features the
Tree of Jesse.
25.
Poissy
–
Poissy is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France in north-central France. It is located in the suburbs of Paris,23.8 km from the centre of Paris. In 1561 it was the site of a fruitless Catholic-Huguenot conference and it is known for hosting successively the Automobiles Gregoire, Matford, Ford SAF, Simca, Chrysler, Talbot factories, and now hosts one of Frances largest Peugeot factories. The Simca Poissy engine was made here, Poissy is served by Poissy station on Paris RER line A and on the Transilien Paris – Saint-Lazare suburban rail line. It occupies about 66 acres on the northeast of PSA Peugeot Citroën factory, the Park welcomes 150 companies employing a total of 2,000 employees. It also hosts The Charles-de-Gaulle High School and The Training Centre for the Employees in Pharmacy gathering 1,500 high school students and students. Two business incubator, a heliport, the Chamber of Commerce of Yvelines-Val dOise, villa Savoye, considered by many to be the seminal work of the Swiss architect Le Corbusier. The Noyau de Poissy is a based on macerated or distilled apricot pits. Musée du jouet, shows 800 games and toys dating between 1850 and 1950, La salle Molière, Cinema, Library Christine de Pizan, Library André-Malraux. La Porteuse de pain, La Demoiselle dAvignon, La Tribu Les Grands Ducs, Le Ciel, les oiseaux et. ta mère. S
Poissy
–
The town hall in Poissy
Poissy
–
PSA Peugeot-Citroën
26.
Semur-en-Auxois
–
Semur-en-Auxois is a commune of the Côte-dOr department in eastern France. The engineer Edmé Régnier LAîné and the Encyclopédiste Philippe Guéneau de Montbeillard were born in Semur-en-Auxois, Semur-en-Auxois has a medieval core, built on a pink granite bluff more than half-encircled by the River Armançon. Semur-en-Auxois was the start of Stage 6 in the 2007 Tour de France and it was restored in the 19th century by Viollet-le-Duc. The north tympanum depicts the legend of St. Thomas
Semur-en-Auxois
–
Semur-en-Auxois
27.
Basilica of St. Nazaire and St. Celse, Carcassonne
–
The Basilica of Saints Nazarius and Celsus is a romanesque-gothic minor basilica, located in the citadel of Carcassonne, France. The original church is thought to have been constructed in the 6th century during the reign of Theodoric the Great, on 12 June 1096, Pope Urban II visited the town and blessed the building materials for the construction of the cathedral. Construction was completed in the first half of the twelfth century and it was built on the site of a Carolingian cathedral, of which no traces remain. The crypt too, despite its ancient appearance, dates from the new construction. Around the end of the 13th century, during the rule of kings Philip III, Philip IV, and the episcopates of Pierre de Rochefort and Pierre Rodier and it remained the cathedral of Carcassonne until 1803, when it lost the title to the present Carcassonne Cathedral. The Church of Saints Nazarius and Celsus obtained the status of monument in 1840. Around this time, the architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc renovated the church along with the rest of the citadel, in 1898, the church was elevated to a minor basilica. The sandstone basilicas floor plan is based on a Latin cross, internally measuring 59 m in length,16 m in nave width. The oldest part of the church is the Romanesque tripartite nave, the main entrance in its north wall is formed by a Romanesque portal of five receding arches over two doors. A fortress façade forms the west wall, as is common for medieval Languedocian church buildings, the transept and choir were rebuilt in the Gothic style. The larger windows in this part of the permit a better illumination compared to the darker romansque nave. The central stained glass window of the choir from 1280 is one of the oldest ones in the south of France, together with the upper trefoils, it depicts the life of Jesus in 16 medallions
Basilica of St. Nazaire and St. Celse, Carcassonne
–
Southern
transept of the basilica
Basilica of St. Nazaire and St. Celse, Carcassonne
Basilica of St. Nazaire and St. Celse, Carcassonne
–
The romanesque entrance in the north façade
28.
Carcasonne
–
Carcassonne is a fortified French town in the Aude department, of which it is the prefecture, in the Region of Occitanie. Inhabited since the Neolithic period, Carcassonne is located in the Aude plain between historic trade routes, linking the Atlantic to the Mediterranean sea and the Massif Central to the Pyrénées and its strategic location led successive rulers to expand its fortifications until the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659. The city is famous for the Cité de Carcassonne, a medieval fortress restored by the theorist and architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc in 1853, consequently, Carcassonne relies heavily on tourism but also counts manufacture and wine-making as some of its other key economic sectors. Carcassonne is located in the south of France, about 80 kilometres east from the city of Toulouse and its strategic location between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea has been known since the neolithic era. The towns area is about 65 km2, which is larger than the numerous small towns in the Aude department. The rivers Aude, Fresquel and the Canal du Midi flow through the town, the Volcae Tectosages fortified the oppidum. The folk etymology – involving a châtelaine named Carcas, a ruse ending a siege, Carcas on a column near the Narbonne Gate, is of modern invention. The name can be derived as an augmentative of the name Carcas, Carcassonne became strategically identified when Romans fortified the hilltop around 100 BC and eventually made the colonia of Julia Carsaco, later Carcasum. The main part of the courses of the northern ramparts dates from Gallo-Roman times. In 462 the Romans officially ceded Septimania to the Visigothic king Theodoric II who had held Carcassonne since 453 and he built more fortifications at Carcassonne, which was a frontier post on the northern marches, traces of them still stand. Theodoric is thought to have begun the predecessor of the basilica that is now dedicated to Saint Nazaire, in 508 the Visigoths successfully foiled attacks by the Frankish king Clovis. A medieval fiefdom, the county of Carcassonne, controlled the city and it was often united with the County of Razès. The origins of Carcassonne as a county probably lie in local representatives of the Visigoths, Bello founded a dynasty, the Bellonids, which would rule many honores in Septimania and Catalonia for three centuries. In 1067, Carcassonne became the property of Raimond-Bernard Trencavel, viscount of Albi and Nîmes, through his marriage with Ermengard, in the following centuries, the Trencavel family allied in succession either with the counts of Barcelona or of Toulouse. They built the Château Comtal and the Basilica of St. Nazaire, in 1096, Pope Urban II blessed the foundation stones of the new cathedral. Carcassonne became famous for its role in the Albigensian Crusades, when the city was a stronghold of Occitan Cathars, in August 1209 the crusading army of the Papal Legate, Abbot Arnaud Amalric, forced its citizens to surrender. Raymond-Roger de Trencavel was imprisoned whilst negotiating his citys surrender and died in mysterious circumstances three months later in his own dungeon, simon De Montfort was appointed the new viscount. In 1240, Trencavels son tried to reconquer his old domain, the city submitted to the rule of the kingdom of France in 1247
Carcasonne
–
Panorama of the
Cité de Carcassonne
Carcasonne
–
Cathars being expelled from Carcassonne in 1209
Carcasonne
–
View of Carcassonne in the late 19th century.
Carcasonne
–
Fortified City Wall
29.
Basilica of St. Sernin, Toulouse
–
The Basilica of Saint-Sernin is a church in Toulouse, France, the former abbey church of the Abbey of Saint-Sernin or St Saturnin. Apart from the church, none of the buildings remain. The current church is located on the site of a basilica of the 4th century which contained the body of Saint Saturnin or Sernin. Constructed in the Romanesque style between about 1080 and 1120, with construction continuing thereafter, Saint-Sernin is the largest remaining Romanesque building in Europe, the church is particularly noted for the quality and quantity of its Romanesque sculpture. In 1998 the basilica was added to the UNESCO World Heritage Sites under the description, the abbey of Saint-Sernin was an ancient foundation. St. Sylvius, bishop of Toulouse, began construction of the basilica towards the end of the 4th century, the size of the current building and the existence of an ambulatory may reflect the need to accommodate increasing numbers of pilgrims. The difficulty of determining an accurate chronology for the construction of Saint-Sernin, at least as early as the 1010s, Bishop Pierre Roger had set aside a portion of the offerings to Saint-Sernin for an eventual rebuilding of the Carolingian church. During the decade of the 1070s and by 1080 at the latest, nevertheless, there are only two firm dates that bear directly on the church itself and even these involve certain difficulties. On May 24,1096, Pope Urban II dedicated the altar of the still incomplete building. Although there have been attempts to determine the point that construction had reached at this time. That is, construction must have begun at least several years before that date, the second firm date is July 3,1118, the death of St. Raymond Gayrard, canon and provost of the chapter. At any rate, whenever started, it appears that construction of the church did not progress continuously through to completion, the walls in this section are built of brick and stone, with a higher proportion of stone than elsewhere in the building. As construction proceeded, it was marked by an increasing proportion of brick. While there is agreement on the starting point, interpretation of the subsequent archeological evidence is subject to varying opinions. The earliest systematic examinations, after the restoration of Viollet-le-Duc, concluded there had been three major building campaigns. More recent observations have concluded there were four major building campaigns. The earliest section begins with the apse and includes the chevet and all of the transept below the level of the gallery, the second stage is marked by the walls of the transept being completed with alternating courses of brick and stone. This change is paralleled by a change in the style of the interior decorated capitals
Basilica of St. Sernin, Toulouse
–
West entrance of the basilica.
Basilica of St. Sernin, Toulouse
–
Basilica of Saint-Sernin Basilique Saint-Sernin de Toulouse Basilica de Sant Sarnin de Tolosa
Basilica of St. Sernin, Toulouse
Basilica of St. Sernin, Toulouse
30.
Toulouse
–
Toulouse is the capital city of the southwestern French department of Haute-Garonne, as well as of the Occitanie region. The city lies on the banks of the River Garonne,150 kilometres from the Mediterranean Sea,230 km from the Atlantic Ocean and it is the fourth-largest city in France with 466,297 inhabitants in January 2014. The Toulouse Metro area is, with 1312304 inhabitants as of 2014, Frances 4th metropolitan area after Paris, Lyon and Marseille and ahead of Lille and Bordeaux. Toulouse is the centre of the European aerospace industry, with the headquarters of Airbus, the Galileo positioning system, the SPOT satellite system, the Airbus Group, ATR and the Aerospace Valley. The city also hosts the European headquarters of Intel and CNESs Toulouse Space Centre, thales Alenia Space, and Astrium Satellites, Airbus Groups satellite system subsidiary, also have a significant presence in Toulouse. The University of Toulouse is one of the oldest in Europe and, with more than 103,000 students, is the fourth-largest university campus in France, after the Universities of Paris, Lyon and Lille. The air route between Toulouse Blagnac and Paris Orly is the busiest in Europe, transporting 2.4 million passengers in 2014, according to the rankings of LExpress and Challenges, Toulouse is the most dynamic French city. It is now the capital of the Occitanie region, the largest region in metropolitan France, sernin, the largest remaining Romanesque building in Europe, designated in 1998 because of its significance to the Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage route. Toulouse is in the south of France, north of the department of Haute-Garonne, the city is traversed by the Canal de Brienne, the Canal du Midi and the rivers Garonne, Touch and Hers-Mort. Toulouse has a subtropical climate which can be qualified as submediterranean due to its proximity to the Mediterranean climate zone. The Garonne Valley was a point for trade between the Pyrenees, the Mediterranean and the Atlantic since at least the Iron Age. The historical name of the city, Tolosa, it is of unknown meaning or origin, possibly from Aquitanian, or from Iberian, Tolosa enters the historical period in the 2nd century BC, when it became a Roman military outpost. After the conquest of Gaul, it was developed as a Roman city of Gallia Narbonensis. In the 5th century, Tolosa fell to the Visigothic kingdom and became one of its cities, in the early 6th century even serving as its capital. From this time, Toulouse was the capital of Aquitaine within the Frankish realm, in 721, Duke Odo of Aquitaine defeated an invading Umayyad Muslim army at the Battle of Toulouse. Odos victory was an obstacle to Muslim expansion into Christian Europe. Charles Martel, a later, won the Battle of Tours. The Frankish conquest of Septimania followed in the 750s, and a quasi-independent County of Toulouse emerged within the Carolingian sub-kingdom of Aquitaine by the late 8th century
Toulouse
–
Montage of Toulouse Top: Pont Saint Pierre and
Garonne River Middle:
Place du Capitole,
Pont Neuf Bottom:
Capitole de Toulouse, Ariane 5 at
Cité de l'espace,
Médiathèque José Cabanis
Toulouse
–
Vomitorium at the Roman amphitheatre in Toulouse
Toulouse
–
Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse was a leader of the
First Crusade
Toulouse
–
The
Capitole de Toulouse is an example of the 18th-century architectural projects in the city.
Works related to Dictionary of French Architecture from the 11th to 16th Century at Wikisource
Media related to Viollet-le-Duc at Wikimedia Commons
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Viollet-le-Duc, Eugène Emmanuel". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "
