Gothic Architecture in Europe - can discussed
The cathedral took nearly six centuries to complete: construction began in , and the final details were completed in It is the largest church in Italy—the larger St. Peter's Basilica is in the State of Vatican City , a sovereign nation—and the second largest in Europe and the fourth largest in the world. Milan's layout, with streets either radiating from the Duomo or circling it, reveals that the Duomo occupies what was the most central site in Roman Mediolanum , that of the public basilica facing the forum. It seems to share, on a slightly smaller scale, the plan of the contemporaneous church recently rediscovered beneath Tower Hill in London. The old octagonal baptistery, the Battistero Paleocristiano , dates to and still can be visited under the Cathedral. Gothic Architecture in Europe
The Basilica of Saint-Denis is the earliest known example of Gothic architecture and provided a model for ecclesiastical structures throughout the Middle Ages. As a major stop on pilgrimage routes and the burial place of nearly every French Gothic Architecture in Europe, this was both a religious and political problem. At a time when architecture was used to communicate strength and control to the masses, the decaying Saint-Denis disarmed the Church and politically diminished the potency of royal dominance. Ina new Abbot was appointed to Saint-Denis, Suger. He prioritized the crumbling church building, the basilica, to renovate and in went to work to restore and glorify God and the king.
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Gothic architecture was born. Saint-Denis stands in what is now considered the northern suburbs of Paris and has been a destination for Christian pilgrims since AD. That same year, as legend has it, the martyr St. Denis placed his decapitated head on the ground on which this Gothic monument now sits. The site evolved from a 5th-century shrine to St. Not long after Dagobert mandated that he be buried next to the body of the martyr. Saint-Denis grew in stature, becoming the royal abbey and royal mausoleum, guarding the regalia and the oriflamme, a crimson banner which accompanied the kings to battle. Gothic Architecture in Europe and State were intrinsically linked. Thus, inAbbot Suger inherited an important royal abbey.
Suger was well-connected, a statesman, and an influential confidant and advisor to King Louis VI reigned They also mobilized those in their employ to charge tolls for crossing their lands, rob pilgrims, cheat merchants, seize goods and cargo from ships and envoys, and loot churches and abbeys.
Louis led his army around the country, bearing law and order, and repossessing properties at will. His successor, Louis VIImaintained this authority. Suger, keeping close to the new king, acted as an advisor as well as a matchmaker, and arranged the marriage between Louis VII and Eleanor of Aquitaine. Suger, and therefore Saint-Denis, were firmly entrenched in the livelihood of the crown.
Even without the personal relationship, Suger enjoyed with the king, as abbot of a royal abbey, Suger had a fundamental responsibility to support him in his policies and governance. Suger fulfilled his commitments, but Saint-Denis, his domain, did not. The kings of France had only recently clenched their power over the robber barons.
A prominent royal abbey like Saint-Denis was required to express the greatness of the intrinsically linked Crown and God. Basilica of Saint-Denisbuilt invia Viator Article continues below advertisement.]
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