Sainte-Chapelle
ChurchHidden Gem
La Sainte-Chapelle, known also as the Sainte-Chapelle du Palais, is a palatine chapel raised upon the Île de la Cité, in Paris, on the very site of the former chapelle Saint-Nicolas-du-Palais, commissioned by Saint Louis to enshrine the Holy Crown of Thorns, a fragment of the True Cross, as well as various
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History
Nestled at the heart of the île de la Cité, within the precincts of the Palais de la Cité, the Sainte-Chapelle stands as one of the most accomplished achievements of French Rayonnant Gothic. Built in record time between 1242 and 1248, it asserts itself as a prodigy of mediaeval architecture: its stone walls appear to have been entirely dissolved, giving way to a curtain of light held aloft by a framework of stone of breathtaking delicacy. What renders this monument truly singular is the density and exceptional quality of its stained glass. With more than 1,113 square metres of glazing spread across fifteen monumental bays, the upper chapel constitutes one of the finest and best-preserved ensembles of mediaeval stained glass in the world. Its some 1,130 panels tell, in images, more than 1,000 scenes drawn from the Old and New Testaments, forming a veritable cathedral of light that the sun transforms, as the hours pass, into an entrancing kaleidoscope. The edifice is composed of two superimposed levels of markedly different purposes: the lower chapel, barrel-vaulted and adorned with restored polychrome decoration, was reserved for the servants and household staff of the royal palace. The upper chapel, reached by a spiral staircase of rare elegance, was intended for the king and his court, allowing Louis IX to place himself in the closest possible proximity to the sacred relics he had acquired at extraordinary cost. To visit the Sainte-Chapelle is to experience something altogether extraordinary for the senses. The moment one steps into the upper chapel, the eye is immediately seized by the iridescence of thousands of fragments of coloured glass that suffuse the space in a golden, crimson, and azure light. The Flamboyant rose window of the western façade, added in the fifteenth century, brings this visual narrative to a close with an explosion of geometric forms of disconcerting modernity. The setting is itself of rare richness: within the île de la Cité, a stone's throw from the cathedral of Notre-Dame — currently undergoing restoration — and the flower market, the Sainte-Chapelle remains an essential pause for any visitor who wishes to grasp the very essence of mediaeval Paris and the artistic ambition of the reign of Saint Louis.
Architecture
La Sainte-Chapelle represents the culmination of the rayonnant Gothic style, that architectural movement born in Île-de-France in the mid-thirteenth century, which carries the logic of structural lightening to its most extreme conclusion. The building unfolds across two levels: a lower chapel, some 6.60 metres in height, its pointed vaulting resting upon stocky columns adorned with polychrome paintings restored in the nineteenth century; and an upper chapel, rising to nearly 20.50 metres at the keystone, whose architectural conception is nothing short of revolutionary. In the upper chapel, the load-bearing walls are reduced to their bare structural minimum: slender piers of stone, braced on the exterior by flying buttresses of an almost gossamer delicacy, suffice to carry the vault. Between these piers, the entirety of the wall surface is given over to semicircular stained-glass windows reaching fifteen metres in height. This principle of dissolving the wall in favour of glass represents the most audacious technical achievement of Gothic architecture. The flamboyant rose window of the western façade, added around 1485–1498, speaks to the stylistic evolution towards a more exuberant Gothic idiom, with its geometric tracery of refined decorative complexity. On the exterior, the building presents a massive base pierced by twin portals with sculpted gables, an openwork gallery running at the level of the upper chapel, and a slender spire — reconstructed in the nineteenth century — soaring to 42.5 metres. The materials employed are lutetian limestone for the structure, and lead paired with coloured mouth-blown glass for the windows. The ground-plan dimensions are modest — some 36 metres in length by 17 metres in width — a restraint that lends the building an impression of verticality and concentrated luminosity that is quite breathtaking.
Related Figures
Louis IX (Saint Louis) — roi de France, commanditaire de la chapelle et acquéreur des reliques de la PassionPierre de Montreuil — architecte probable de la chapelle haute, maître d'œuvre du gothique rayonnant parisienBaudouin II de Constantinople — empereur latin qui vendit la Couronne d'épines à Saint Louis en 1239Eugène Viollet-le-Duc — architecte qui dirigea la grande campagne de restauration au XIXe siècleJean-Baptiste-Antoine Lassus — co-directeur de la restauration avec Viollet-le-Duc à partir de 1840Alfred Gérente — maître verrier chargé de la restauration et recomposition des panneaux de vitrauxCharles VIII — roi de France sous le règne duquel fut réalisée la rose flamboyante occidentale (vers 1485-1498)
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