The history of Notre Dame, the Gothic cathedral where they crowned Napoleon

The Notre-Dame cathedral, which caught fire on Monday afternoon, is one of the main most emblematic monuments of the French capital. It was a landmark stage in the history of the country and is one of the key works of Gothic architecture.

The Notre-Dame cathedral is located on the small island of La Cité, surrounded by the waters of the Seine. It is a Catholic cult and the seat of the Archdiocese of Paris.

Its construction started in the year 1163 and it was completed in 1345. It is dedicated to Mary, mother of Jesus Christ, and became one of the most popular monuments of the French capital for tourists, with a total of 13 million annual visits.

"His fame is not overestimated: it's one of the masterpieces of Gothic architecture. More than a historical monument, this cathedral is above all "the house of God and the house of man", because this building, which lives from the faith and the prayer of the faithful, is charged with human and Christian experiences He said. own institutional description.

The site chosen for its construction is a privileged place, because on the island of the City, the Celts celebrated their cults in antiquity. It is also the place where existed the first church of Paris, the Saint-Etienne basilica.

The construction of the cathedral began after the election of the bishop of Paris in 1160 by Maurice de Sully, who proposed the demolition of old Saint-Etienne and the construction of Notre-Dame. In addition, its square means "zero point" of the country: it is the geographical place from which the kilometers of the routes of France begin to be counted.

In 1163, the construction of the cathedral began in the presence of Pope Alexander III, which reflected the aspirations of the society of the time when the city resurfaced politically and economically, as the rich bourgeoisie rose. Several architects participated in the project, which required several modifications over the years.

The first major modification took place at the end of the seventeenth century (under the reign of Louis XIV), when the tombs and stained glbad windows were replaced by Baroque elements. During the French Revolution many elements of the cathedral they were destroyed and several stolen treasures.

In this cathedral, very important events took place for the history of France coronation of Napoleon and Henry IV, or the beatification of Joan of Arc.

The structure has a Latin cross shape, with a large body of five naves and side chapels. The main nave has a total length of 127 meters and a width of 48 meters. The transept (a transverse nave that forms the arm in the church) is particularly short: 14 meters wide and 48 meters long, the same measurement of the width of the nave.

In turn, the building reached in the needle (its dome) a maximum height of 96 meters and a total area of ​​5,500 square meters. In the organization of the facade, which follows a hierarchical and geometric pattern, we can distinguish the north tower, the south tower, the chimera gallery, the western rose window, the gallery of kings and the three access doors that represent the Virgin, the final judgment and Santa Ana.