Home > Cathedral of Tours
The cathedral of Tours, dedicated to Saint Gatien, its canonized first bishop, was begun about 1170 to replace the just-started cathedral that was burnt out in 1166, during the quarrel between Louis VII of France and Henry II of England.Work proceeded at a leisurely pace through the centuries until 1547. The lowermost stages of the west towers (illustration, right) belong to the 12th century, but the rest of the west end is in the profusely detailed Flamboyant Gothic of the 15th century, completed just as the Renaissance was affecting less traditional patrons than bishops, in the pleasure châteaux of Touraine. These towers were being constructed at the same time as, for example, Château de Chenonceau, and a few first traces of the new Antique style can be detected in the three uppermost octagonal tiers, with balustrades and pilasterIn architecture, pilasters comprise slightly-projecting pseudo- columns built into or onto a wall, with capitals and bases. See also Classical architecture List of classical architecture terms Architectural elements.s, terminating in overscaled lanterns on tapering roofs that refer to domes. Henry JamesHenry James ( April 15 1843 February 28, 1916), younger brother of the philosopher and psychologist William James, was a British-American author of the late 19th and early 20th century, best known for novels and novellas based upon themes of morality. complimented the cathedral's "charming mouse-colored complexion." [1]
Inside the triple- naveFull descriptions of the elements of a Gothic floorplan are found at the entry Cathedral diagram. Tewkesbury Abbey. The nave is coloured yellow and red. The crossing (red) is visually and liturgically part of the nave. Eliminating the rood screen visuallyd church, building proceeded as always from the sanctuary and choirThis article is about choirs, musical ensembles containing singers. For other meanings of the word, see Choir (disambiguation). A choir is a musical ensemble. The term is generally used to refer to ensembles of singers, but can also refer to a collection, with some of the finest stained glassStrictly speaking, stained glass is glass that has been painted with silver stain and then fired. Depending on its thickness, this stains clear glass with a gold/yellow/brown color. This appears most typically in the golden haloes depicted in church windo (13th century), and worked pier by pier down the nave: the choir is 13th century; the transeptTewkesbury Abbey. The transepts are coloured purple; the crossing is red. Full descriptions of the elements of a Gothic floorplan are found at the entry Cathedral diagram. In Romanesque and Gothic Christian church architecture, the transept is the area se and east bays of the nave are 14th century; a cloisterCloister of Saint Trophimus, in Arles, France A Cloister is part of cathedral's and abbey's architecture. A cloister consists usually of four corridors, with a courtyard or quad in the middle. Cloisteral life is another name for the life of a monk or nun. on the north is contemporary with the facade.
When the 15th century illuminator Jean Fouquet was set the task of illumninating Josephus's Jewish Antiquities, his depiction of Solomon's Temple was modeled after the nearly-complete Cathedral of Tours. The atmosphere of the Gothic cathedral close permeates Honoré de Balzac's dark short novel of jealousy and provincial intrigues, Le Curé de Tours (The Curate of Tours) and his medieval story Maitre Cornelius opens within the cathedral itself.
