On this date in 2019, a fire broke out at the Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral. 10 things you might not know about Notre Dame (“Our Lady of Paris”):
Its postal address is 6 Parvis Notre-Dame – Pl. Jean-Paul II, 75004 Paris, France, and its vital statistics are: Length: 420 feet (128 meters); Width: 157 feet (48 meters); Nave roof height: 115 feet (35 meters); Tower height: 226 feet (69 meters); Spire height: 315 feet (96 meters). The two towers aren’t identical: the south tower is slightly smaller.
Construction began in 1163 and was mostly completed by 1345. It may have been built on the site of a Roman Temple. An excavation in the 18th century discovered pieces of a sculpted altar dedicated to Jupiter. It’s not known for sure, however, that these pieces hadn’t been recycled there from elsewhere. It is known that this is the case for one of the cathedral’s three portals: the Portal Sainte-Anne features a much earlier style of sacred sculpture than the others. This tympanum (semi-circular area of decoration), was recycled from a previous Romanesque church and had been adapted to fit the new space.
For centuries it was the home of what was believed to be the Crown of Thorns that was placed on Jesus Christ’s head during the crucifixion. This was one of the things which survived the 2019 fire and is currently being kept in The Louvre.
Among the survivors of the fire is a hive of around 180,000 Buckfast bees. The hive was installed in 2013 on the Notre-Dame sacristy. Buckfast bees were originally bred by a monk named Brother Adam and are known for being gentle. They make their Honey from Flowers in nearby gardens, and the honey was distributed free of charge to the poor. When the fire broke out, the bees simply hunkered down in the hive, protecting their queen and lived off their honey until it was safe to emerge. By 2020, they were back in business, producing honey as usual.
The ancient timber frames dating back to the 12th century weren’t so lucky. Before the Fire this was one of the oldest surviving structures of its type. Each beam was made from an individual tree sourced from 52 acres of trees. This framework was, for this reason, nicknamed “The Forest”.
There was some damage done during the French Revolution when most churches were rededicated to the new Cult of Reason. Statues of Biblical kings inside the cathedral were decapitated by mobs and thrown away to be used as building materials. In 1977, however, they were found during work on the basement of the French Bank of Foreign Trade and installed at the nearby Musée de Cluny. Another casualty was most of the bells. Aside from a large one called Emmanuel which dated back to 1681, they were melted down to make cannons. New bells installed in the 19th century weren’t as tuneful and it was 2013 before new bells were installed which sounded as good as the original ones.
Statues of the 12 apostles surround the spire. St Thomas bears the face of the architect, Viollet-le-Duc.
Notre Dame may have the largest organ in France. It has almost 8000 pipes (some dating back to the 18th century) and five keyboards. It was restored in 2013 to mark the 850th anniversary of the cathedral, and survived the fire with only some water damage caused by firefighters putting the fire out. Some some claim, however, that Saint-Eustache has a larger organ.
By the 19th century, Notre Dame de Paris had fallen into disrepair and could have crumbled to a ruin if not for two people. One was Napoleon Bonaparte who decided it was the perfect venue for his coronation, and Victor Hugo who raised awareness of the cathedral and its plight in his novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Incidentally, the main character in the story was always intended to be the cathedral and not the hunchback.
It was one of the earliest buildings to make use of flying buttresses. They were constructed around its nave in the 12th century to lend support to the thin walls. There’s some debate over whether Notre-Dame was the first church to have them, but whether it was or not, it certainly set a trend for them in Gothic architecture.
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