Please join us for a pre-recorded lecture, given in French by Anne Embs, conservateur régional des monuments historiques, DRAC – Centre-Val de Loire, and dubbed into English, to be followed by a live question and answer session with Dominique Lallement, President of American Friends of Chartres, and Ellen Shortell, Professor of Art History, Emerita, at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston.
This lecture will evoke the long and eventful history of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Chartres, from the devastating fire in 1020 that led to the construction of the cathedral’s crypt – the largest in France – and the Romanesque cathedral of the 12th century. The fire of 1194, which largely destroyed the Romanesque building, led to the reconstruction of the cathedral in the new Gothic style that we know today.
The current cathedral is the fifth church to be built on its site, the first four churches having all been destroyed by fire. After a fire in 1194, Bishop Renaud de Bar, cousin of King Philippe II Auguste, resolved to build one of the first great Gothic cathedrals, using the new construction techniques of ribbed vaults and pointed arches leading to massive pillars, with flying buttresses to reinforce the pillars, to build a church that was higher and brighter than any built before, including its namesake Notre-Dame de Paris, whose construction had begun 30 years earlier.
The construction of the Gothic-style cathedral was mostly completed by 1220, exceptionally fast for the time. The new construction techniques allowed the walls between the pillars supporting the weight of the ceiling and roof to be filled with 172 spectacular stained-glass windows. The choir enclosure, whose construction started in the 16th century, was decorated with 200 sculptures.
Instead of a spire over the transept crossing, like Notre-Dame de Paris, Chartres has two giant spires atop the towers on either side of its western façade, the one above the south tower completed in 1165 in the early Gothic style, and the other above the north tower rebuilt between 1507 and 1514 in the Flamboyant Gothic style after being hit by lightning.
On June 4, 1836 – 183 years before the 2019 fire of Notre-Dame de Paris – a fire destroyed the wooden roof frame (“la forêt” – “the forest”) and lead roof of Notre-Dame de Chartres. Between 1839 and 1848, the architect Jean-Baptist Lassus – collaborator with Eugène Viollet-le-Duc on the restoration of Notre-Dame de Paris – undertook the restoration of Chartres Cathedral. But unlike the recent restoration of its namesake in Paris, which was rebuilt using the original materials, Chartres’ new roof frame was rebuilt in nonflammable cast-iron (en fonte) and its new roof was covered with copper plates.
Both Notre-Dame de Paris and Notre-Dame de Chartres were classified as national historical monuments in 1862.
UNESCO designated Chartres Cathedral a World Heritage Site in 1979, calling it “the high point of French Gothic art” and a “masterpiece”. It was the first French building to be designated by UNESCO.
This lecture, which is presented in partnership with the American Friends of Chartres, is part of the History & Heritage series hosted by the Alliance Française de Chicago and the Alliance Française Miami Metro.
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