The first aspect of the Cathedral produces on the mind a deep impression. One is seized with admiration and amazed at the first view of this noble edifice whose steeple towers up so gracefully and majestically. No doubt that examined in all its particular parts, one may also be struck with the disproportion that exists between them; the nave is not in harmony with the dimensions of the tower, the chancel and transept still less so: but although this want of uniformity may lessen the symmetry of the monument, the impression it at first produces is no less extraordinary. And besides, have not those different styles a particular interest for those who study the history of architecture? In the Cathedral are, as it were, brought together all the styles or orders of architecture of the middle ages, from the byzantine art with its grave simplicity, down to the last glimmerings of the gothic art, now declining, and its works lined with an excess of superfluous ornaments. The byzantine taste prevails in the first constructions of the chancel and aisles and even somewhat in the lower part of the nave; higher up, the style in which the ogive was built extends to the other constructions and finally succeeds to the former entirely. The faÇade of the church, of an imposing magnitude, cannot The whole of the faÇade is formed of the two fore-parts of the northern and southern towers and of the large central porch; these three distinct portions are separated by counterforts or pillars which divide, as it were, the frontispiece into three broad vertical bands, each of which has its portico. These porticos and their frontons are ornamented with a great many statues and bas-reliefs, some of which pulled down during the revolution, have since been replaced. The large figures in the left portico are twelve virgins, wearing diadems and trampling down human forms representing All these statues, now blackened by the centuries that have passed over them, have all a stern appearance, like those that deck the magnificent middle porch representing either prophets of the Old Testament, Apostles or fathers of the Church. In the arches of these three porticos are figures of a smaller size, which like the bas-reliefs of the tympans, exhibit either scenes taken from Scripture, or saints and angels. In the tympan on the right hand door, Jesus is seen seated on a rain-bow, and over him is the Resurrection of the dead and the Judgment-day. On the butting pillar that divides both folds of the middle porch On the second tier of the middle porch is a large rose-window that occupies the whole width of it. It is surrounded by a detached arch, which as much on account of the elegance of its workmanship, as of the boldness of its construction, is one of the most admirable parts of the Cathedral. The large painted windows have been repaired by skilful artists, Mr. Ritter and Mr. MÜller. Where the second tier begins, at the bottom of the rose-window, are four equestrian statues, placed in niches in the counterforts, three of which, those of Clovis, Dagobert and Rodolphe of Habsburg, were erected in 1291, the fourth, that of Louis XIV, was placed only in 1828. Clovis and Dagobert were the benefactors of the church of Strasburg. Rodolphe stands there, less on account of his liberalities to the Cathedral, than for having been to the last the valiant friend of the Republic of Strasburg. King Louis XIV accompanies the three others, rather from adulation than any other cause. On the upper tier of the faÇade are placed the equestrian statues of king Pepin the Short, of Charlemain, Otho the Great and Henry I the Fowler. On the south-side are seen in the first tier the emperors Otho II, Otho III and Henry II; in the upper tier of the same side, the equestrian statues of Conrad II, Henry III and the statue of Henry IV. On the north-side of the faÇade are the equestrian statues of Charles Martel, the Franconian majordomo; of Louis the Debonair and Lotharius, the son of Louis the Debonair; at last in the upper tier, the statues of Charles the Bald, king Over the rose-window, but still in the compartment of the second tier, is a gallery furnished with the figures of the Apostles, and above them is placed Jesus-Christ holding in his hands a cross and banner. In the lateral towers, the same tier is taken up on each side by a high broad window in the shape of an ogee, before which rise very slender pillars. Exactly over these windows, on the third tier and also on each side, are three very high and narrow windows; the middle part, though wider, has but two, rather small ones, and surrounded by some statues. This very massive portion of the building betrays at first sight its later origin; when Erwin's plan was abandoned, this part was added to fill up the empty space between the two towers; these were already completed, and even have on the third tier their windows looking into the central porch, but which are at present hidden from the outside. That part of the middle porch is used as a belfry, four large bells are suspended in it, the largest of which, cast in 1427, weighs nine thousand kilogrammes, and serves to announce great festival days; it is also rung at the death of renowned personages, or in case of fire. It was only in the year 1849 that the front was ornamented with statues representing the day of judgment. This group, consisting of fifteen gigantic figures, was made after the old drawings preserved in the archives of the Œuvre-Notre-Dame. Jesus-Christ, as judge, is in the middle, with Mary and John the Baptist on either side; they are surrounded by angels sounding the trumpet of Dooms-day, or bearing the instruments of our Saviour's passion; beneath are seen the Evangelists, having men's bodies surmounted by the heads of the four symbols which generally accompany them. Above the middle porch and the southward tower, is the On the North side stands a tower of an octangular form, supporting the spire. This tower consists, as it were, but of strong buttresses adorned with small columns and statues, and having large apertures in which very high windows are set and take nearly the whole breadth on the four sides, where they are. Among the statues that face the platform, one must be noticed as being, according to tradition, that of Erwin of Steinbach. In the interior of this tower Christus nos revocat. Christus gratis donat. Jesus Christus verbum caro factum est, (S. John. 1. 14.) The nave, decked with a copper roof, abounds no less in decoration than the front. It has large ogive windows adorned with rosaces; at the place where the buttresses, equally carved with rosaces, join the counterforts or pillars, they have at their tops fine clochetoons; a great many statues and grotesque figures of heads complete the ornaments of this part of the church. Two galleries, one under the windows, the other below the clochetoons of the counterforts, lead from the towers to the cross-aisle. This, as we have already said, is still byzantine in several parts of it. The southern porch, formed by two semi-circular doors made evidently at one of the remotest periods of the Cathedral, is adorned with bas-reliefs and statues; according to tradition, it is reported that two of these statues are the work of Sabina of Steinbach. One is a woman in a triumphal posture holding in her hands a communion cup and a cross; she is the symbol of the church that vanquished the synagogue; the other, a symbol of the The wall of the upper tier has openings for several windows of an ogive form, above which a gallery runs all along; two round-windows take up the third tier. The northern portion of the cross-aisle has more generally preserved the byzantine manner than that we have just spoken of; however, this intermixture with the gothic style denounces latter renovations. The ancient porch, the remains of very old constructions, is masked by a fore-front that belongs to the last period of the gothic art, and which was built in 1494 by James of Landshut; this new porch (porch of St. Laurence), though handsome in its ensemble, is wanting in that noble simplicity and purity of taste that distinguishes the other parts of the Cathedral; it is overloaded with ornaments, and its statues have a stiffness that is found nowhere else. The octangular dome over the chancel is also of the byzantine era; however, it has been renewed in several parts. In the place of the deformed cupola, destroyed by the fire of 1870, a handsome pyramid has been erected in the year 1878, after the plans of Mr. Klotz, architect of the Cathedral. Up to 1772 the lower part of the lateral fronts of the church was disfigured by paltry decayed houses; the same year they were pulled down and in their places the present porticos were built, which are not wanting in elegance: the shops and stalls that formerly obstructed in so disgraceful a manner the access to the nave, have also disappeared; and the porches have been repaired with a great amount of good taste. The view of the interior of the nave leaves a deep impression. On the left side of the nave is fixed the organ which extends up to the superior arch. It is a master-piece of work of Andrew Silbermann, who was one of the most able organ-builders of his time and who built it in 1704. Pierced by a shell during the bombardment of 1870, this organ of Silbermann has been restored by a distinguished organ builder of our city. On the same side, at the fifth pillar, stands the pulpit, erected in 1486 by John Hammerer, by order of the magistrate, for the celebrated preacher Geiler of Kaysersberg. This work of sculpture, remarkably delicate, is adorned with nearly fifty little statues, the meaning of which is easy to understand. The canopy is of a modern style, and was made in 1824 to replace a more ancient one, perhaps the first erected in 1617, which has been handed down to us as a most simple piece of workmanship, and made of lime-wood. At the foot of the stairs are two figures, a man in the posture of rest and a woman praying; we may justly suppose that they are meant for the maker of the pulpit and his wife. The chancel is joined to the nave by two pillars of very large dimensions and whose tops belong to one of the constructions anterior to the gothic order. The magnificent lobby built by Erwin of Steinbach was taken down to make room for the Astronomical Clock.As early as 1352 an astronomical clock was begun under bishop Berthold of Bucheck, and finished two years after by an unknown artist, in the time of John of Lichtenberg. It was fixed to the wall facing the present one. The frame-work of that first clock was all of wood; the stones that formed its basis are to this day seen projecting from the wall. It was divided into three parts; the lower part contained a universal calendar; in the middle was an astrolabe, and in the superior division were seen the three wise men and the Virgin Mary carved in wood; the wise men bent every hour before The exact time at which this clock, which in the fourteenth century must have been a wonderful piece of workmanship, and was called the clock of the three sages, ceased going, is not known: it had been stopped for a long time, when in 1547 the magistrate of the town decided on having another made and putting it opposite the old one, in the very place the clock now occupies. Three distinguished mathematicians furnished the plan and superintended the execution of it: they were Dr Michel Herr, Christian Herlin, professor of mathematics at the school of Strasburg, and Nicholas Prugner, who, after preaching the reformation at Mulhouse and at Benfeld, occupied himself at Strasburg with mechanics and astrology. These three learned men began this work, but did not terminate it; it was resumed in the year 1570 by a pupil of Herlin, named Conrad Dasypodius of Strasburg, where he was a professor of mathematics. Dasypodius drew the design of the clock, but its execution was confided to two skilful mechanics of Schaffhouse, the brothers Isaac and Josiah Habrecht; Tobias Stimmer, also of Schaffhouse, had the charge of the paintings. This master-piece of the mechanical art of the sixteenth century was completed in 1574; it ceased going in 1789. As the exterior distribution of the present clock is nearly the same as that of the old clock, we shall abstain from describing the latter. In 1836 the corporation of the town of Strasburg adopted the resolution of causing this curious monument to be repaired. To Mr. SchwilguÉ, a distinguished mechanician of Strasburg, his native place, this remarkable work was entrusted; he began it the 24th of June 1838 and finished it at the end of 1842. It is one of the most beautiful pieces of workmanship of Mr. SchwilguÉ has altered the old calendar into a perpetual one with the addition of the feasts that vary, according to their connexion with Easter or Advent Sundays. The dial, nine metres in circumference, is subject to a revolution of 365 or 366 days, according as the case may be. Mr. SchwilguÉ has even indicated the suppression of the secular bissextile days. He has moreover enriched his work by adding to it an ecclesiastic compute with all its indications; an orrery after the Copernican system, representing the mean tropical revolutions of each of the planets visible to the naked eye, the phases of the moon, the eclipses of the sun and moon, calculated for ever; the true time and the sideral time; a new celestial globe with the procession of the equinoxes, solar and lunary equations for the reduction of the mean geocentric ascension and declension of the sun and moon at true times and places. A dial placed without the church and showing the hours and days, is put in motion by the same mechanism of the clockwork. The camerated roof of the back part of the chancel was formerly covered with paintings executed in 1686 representing Dooms-day. A few paintings only adorned till now the interior of the Cathedral, among which the most remarkable oil-paintings, executed by artists of Strasburg, are: the Shepherd's Adoration, by Guerin, the Laying in the tomb, by Klein; the Ascension, by Heim, and some others. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the chancel was several times and in different ways enlarged and disfigured by ornaments little correspondent with the elegance and grandeur of the gothic order. Tribunes, stairs and wainscots that formed a strange contrast with the rest of the edifice were added. The altar, adorned in 1501, with fine figures carved In restoring to this part of the edifice its former appearance, it has highly augmented the effect produced on the inward aspect of the Cathedral; now also may be decided the question, hitherto doubtful, of the exact time at which the chancel was built; with certainty, it may already be said, that it was not erected, as was often affirmed, in the time of the emperor Charlemain. In removing the superfetations that had taken place during these two last centuries, and in reestablishing the architectural forms that the wretched style then prevailing had concealed, The Apsis is not very deep and terminates by a segment, cut out of a masonry work outwardly square; entirely devoted to the sanctuary, it only contains the high-altar, the twenty four stalls of the chapter and a necessary room to perform divine worship. In 1878 an accompanying organ has been erected on the left side. This beautiful instrument, made by Mr. Merklin, the skilful organ-builder of Lyons, is a masterpiece of art and taste that enhances indeed the chancel of the Cathedral. In front and a few steps lower down lies the chancel, destined to the inferior clergy and choristers. This chancel surmounted by a large octagonal cupola, the external part of which was struck by lightning in 1759, is placed at the intersection of the transepts and nave; open and lighted on all sides, one can admire the boldness and majesty of the columns and basis that support the arched roofs. The cripta or subterranean place, extending under the whole length of the chancel, is worthy of notice; it has also been recently restored. It is of an older order than the constructions of Erwin of Steinbach; it is perhaps the remainder of the edifice erected by bishop Werner, at the beginning of the eleventh century; the shape of the pillars, their cubical tops or chapters, The most ancient of the present chapels of the Cathedral is that of Saint-Andrew, in the South aisle of the chancel; it is remarkable for the details of its columns and for its ornaments of a very old style; it contains the tombs of several bishops, the oldest of which is that of Henry of Hasenburg, who died in 1190. Behind the North aisle of the chancel, is Saint-John the Baptist's chapel, also very old, and being now lower than the pavement of the Cathedral. Besides several epitaphs, one here sees the fine gothic sepulchre of bishop Conrad of Lichtenberg, who died in 1299. The colossal statue of that prelate lies on a stone and has still some marks of the colours with which it had formerly been painted; in one hand he holds a book, in the other was his crosier of which only the lower part is now left; his head covered with the mitre rests on a cushion and his feet lie against a lion «Anno domini MCCLXXXXIX kal. Augusti obiit Conradus secundus de Lichtenberg natus, Argentinensis episcopus, hic sepultus. Qui omnibus bonis condicionibus, quÆ in homine mundiali debent concurrere, eminebat; nec sibi visus similis est in illis. Sedit autem annis XXV et mensibus sex. Orate pro eo.» The first chapel built in the Cathedral was Saint-Lawrence's, next to the North portal of the transept. It was the oldest parish in the town and diocese of Strasburg; the vicar of Saint-Lawrence was the first archpriest of the diocese and at the same time grand-penitentiary of the Cathedral. This chapel, decayed with time, was rebuilt after the plans of master James of Landshut, who died in 1495, and was completed in 1505; when in the course of time it became too small for the parish, it was transferred in 1698 into the neighbouring chapel of Saint-Martin, which had been built in 1420 and then assumed the name of Saint-Lawrence's chapel that it retained ever since. Among the sepulchral monuments it contains, is seen that of Mr. de la BÂtie, in his live time commander of Strasburg. In this chapel is the entrance to the vaults, where to this day the bishops' mortal remains are deposited. The chapel opposite the latter, on the right side of the church, is dedicated to saint Catharine; it was erected in the year 1331 by bishop Berthold of Bucheck who is interred in it. It was newly arched in 1542 and formerly contained the holy tomb. The entrances both into this and the chapel of Saint-Lawrence are decorated with several old statues; in Saint-Catharine's chapel is the tomb of Conrad Bock, a nobleman of Strasburg, who died in 1480; this work is remarkable for the manner in which the numerous figures that surround the bed of the dying man, are grouped together. The sepulchral stones that served as flag-stones or pavement in the interior of this large building, have long ago been removed. Besides the sepulchral monuments and inscriptions already mentioned we shall note the epitaphs of Erwin of Steinbach, of Husa his wife, and of his son John, at the lower part of the buttress in the little yard behind Saint John's We shall add one word more on the foundations of the Cathedral. Every one knows the old story, according to which this edifice rests on piles, between each of which it were possible to go in boats on canals extending even under the place Gutenberg. As far back as the seventeenth century, they dug to a considerable depth, and have since several times renewed the experiments, to ascertain the nature of the foundations, that have been found to lie very deep and to be very solid, formed of masonry reposing on clay mixed with gravel; under a portion of the nave this bottom is reinforced by oaken piles. Through a door on the right of saint Catharine's chapel you enter the area of the workhouse of the stone-cutters of the Cathedral (SteinhÜtte). These workmen, even to this day form a particular corporation that seems to have originated in the days of Erwin of Steinbach; at all events it is a certain fact that the masons of the Cathedral were from the beginning a body, distinct from the ordinary masons; that they have not admitted among them every one who presented It has already been stated that at a very remote period the Cathedral had received rich and important donations composing the Œuvre-Notre-Dame, the revenues of which were originally under the direction of the bishops; but as they squandered them away «leaving the building to decay,» the chapter assumed their administration in 1263, after the war between the town and Walter of Geroldseck; however, the canons did no better and in 1290 the magistrate of the city was obliged to take back from them the management of the revenues. The estate and income of the Œuvre, employed only for keeping in good order and for repairing the Cathedral church, are still managed like other property that belongs to the city; the collector of the revenues is appointed by the city corporation, who also names the architect and sculptor of the Œuvre. The receiver's office is in a handsome house (Frauenhaus), built in 1581, after the taste of those times, situated opposite the South side of the Cathedral. In that house, where the old plans of the church and the pieces of the old clockwork, above mentioned, are carefully preserved, we have also to admire the light and elegant construction of the staircase. |