Part 79

Passing from England to the continent, one of the first church edifices that attracts attention, both as to its antiquity and grandeur, is the cathedral of Notre Dame, in Paris. This vast erection of world-wide fame, stands on an island in the Seine, where was the center of the old city of the Parisii in the days of Julius Cæsar. It is a cruciform structure, four hundred and forty-two feet long, one hundred and sixty-two wide, and more than one hundred feet high to the vaulting of the roof, having all the characteristics of a vast ancient Gothic cathedral. It was begun in the year 1010, and was nearly four hundred years in building, not being finished till 1407. At the west end are two lofty towers, each two hundred and thirty-five feet high, designed as bases for steeples, which as yet have never been added. The inside of the church has a very splendid and imposing appearance, owing to its numerous aisles and chapels; and the west front, with its three large gates, and circular window, and noble gateway, is worthy of the highest admiration. In its imposing appearance, no church in Paris will compare with it.

STRASBURG CATHEDRAL.

But by far the most magnificent church edifice in all France, is the cathedral of Strasburg, a view of which is given in the cut, and which is famous all over the world. Till the time of Louis XIV., Strasburg was a free imperial city; but he seized, and the French have for one hundred and fifty years held it, as a frontier fortress, and the key to Germany. In the city there are many objects of interest, one of the most conspicuous of which is a colossal bronze statue of John Guttenberg, who here first practiced the art of printing; another is a colossal bronze monument, in honor of General Kleber; and still another is a beautiful monument to the memory of Marshal Saxe. But the wonder of the city is the cathedral, the spire of which rises four hundred and seventy-four feet above the pavement, which is nearly as high as the great pyramid of Egypt, and one hundred and forty feet higher than St. Paul’s. Still, owing to the large dimensions of the building, and the light and graceful structure of the spire, it does not impress the observer as being of this extraordinary altitude. The nave of the church is two hundred and thirty feet high, and the round window at the end is forty-eight feet in diameter. This wonderful structure was begun nearly eight hundred years ago. The material is red sandstone, obtained in the vicinity, which has proved very enduring; the church has therefore suffered very little from time, and the chiseled and carved material, after so many centuries of exposure to the weather, retains the sharpness of outline which it had when first finished.

[Illustration: STRASBURG CATHEDRAL.]

The artist who designed this admirable masterpiece of airy open-work, was Erwin, of Steinbach: his plans are still preserved in the town. He died in 1318, when the work was only half finished: it was continued by his son, and afterward by his daughter Sabina. The tower, begun 1277, was not completed till 1439, long after their deaths, and four hundred and twenty-four years after the church was commenced. It was then finished by John Hültz, of Cologne, who was summoned to Strasburg for this end. Had the original design been carried into execution, both the towers would have been raised to the same hight. A doorway, in the south side of the truncated tower, leads to the summit of the spire. On the platform, about two-thirds of the way up, is a telegraph, and a station for the watchmen, who are set to look out for fires. One of them will accompany those who wish to mount the upper spire, and will unlock the iron gate which closes the passage. There is no difficulty or danger in the ascent, to a person of ordinary nerve or steadiness of head; but the stone-work of the steeple is so completely open, and the pillars which support it are so wide apart, and cut so thin, that they more nearly resemble a collection of bars of iron or wood; so that at such a hight one might almost fancy one’s self in a cage, high up, over the city, rather than in the steeple of a church that has stood firm for ages.

The cathedral, as already said, was intended to have two towers, like those of the cathedrals of York and Westminster, in England; but as the expense is enormous, it is probable that the existing tower will remain solitary. This deficiency gives the building a disfigured appearance, especially as the unfinished tower, which is square, rises but half-way. Externally, Strasburg cathedral is distinguished by a light and airy gracefulness, both of structure and material; the sandstone is cut and carved into a thousand forms, some of them, especially in the finished tower, extremely delicate and beautiful. Even the statues and images, which are very numerous, are chiseled out of sandstone, which has an agreeable color of reddish gray. There is not an image of marble upon the whole building. The number of images that cluster around the portal and adhere to its walls is very great: they form a host of little beings, in addition to the statues of full size. Indeed, the profusion of these decorations appears to be extravagant both in point of taste and economy, and some are quite out of place. In a temple, a building devoted to religion, it is not easy to understand the propriety of mounting men on horseback high up in the towers; for such aerial equestrians are to be seen here, sentinel-like, in positions where saints and angels would seem more appropriate ornaments. In the interior of this cathedral there is a simple dignity and grandeur, a holy majesty that is almost overpowering. The magnificent rows of columns of gigantic dimensions and altitude, seen in long perspective, exceed in effect all we can well imagine. The extreme richness of the windows, filled on both sides with stained glass, commemorating, both historically and allegorically, the events of the Bible, and the characters and catastrophes of saints and martyrs, fills both the eye and the mind with delight; and when we turn from gazing to the right and the left along the extended line of lateral windows, and look upon the vast circle of gorgeous light which streams down from the great picture luminary at the end, (a circular window forty-eight feet in diameter, and presenting, in radiating lines, more than the colors of the rainbow,) we are ready to exclaim that Art has not fallen short of Nature in beauty, while she excels her in the permanency of her hues, which have not here been dimmed by the lapse of centuries; and if no violence is committed on this temple, they will be equally brilliant after a thousand years more shall have passed away.

There is in this cathedral a wonderful clock, which has been substituted for an older one that has been removed. The present clock was constructed by a man who is still living; it appears to be about fifty feet high, and more than half that width; it was mute for fifty years, but is now again a living chronometer. Among its many performances are the following. It tells the hours, half-hours and quarter-hours, and the bells which make the report of the flight of time, are struck by automaton figures. A youth strikes the quarter, a mature man the half-hour, and an old man, as the figure of Time, the full hour. This clock tells also the times and seasons of ecclesiastical events, as far as they are associated with astronomical phenomena, and it gives the phases of the moon and the equation of time. At noon, a cock, mounted on a pillar, crows thrice, when a procession of the apostles comes out, and passes in view of the Saviour: among them is Peter, who, shrinking from the eye of his Lord, shows, by his embarrassed demeanor, that he has heard the crowing of the cock, and has fully understood its meaning. Among the movements of its automatons, is that of a beautiful youth, who turns an hour-glass every fifteen minutes. There is also a celestial orrery, that shows the motions of the heavenly bodies with great accuracy and beauty.

CATHEDRAL OF COLOGNE.

The cathedral of Cologne is at once its ornament and its reproach. It was begun in 1248 by the elector Conrad, more than six hundred years ago, but it is not yet finished, although the present Prussian king is expending vast sums upon it. Since the city has passed under the Prussian dominion, and more especially since the accession of the present king, important aid has been obtained from the government. The unfinished towers are rising year by year; and if the annual supplies that have been granted are continued, another fifteen years may possibly see it completed. The estimated expense of finishing it is five million dollars. It is considered as a very fine specimen of the Gothic architecture. One tower, that on the front, is completed. This cathedral is exceedingly gorgeous in decorations, combining all the features that belong to that species of architecture. The choir is finished, and exceeds in splendid beauty almost everything of the kind which the traveler will meet with in Europe. It is very rich in stained glass, and this is true also of the body of the church. Much of the pictured glass is modern: it is set in the same window with the ancient, and is not inferior to it in splendor. The cathedral is paved with rude, common stones, doubtless intended to be temporary only, and to be in due time replaced by marble. It was originally intended that the towers of this cathedral should be five hundred feet high. The dimensions on the ground are four hundred feet by one hundred and eighty. The nave is supported by one hundred columns, of which the middle ones are forty feet in circumference.

CHURCH OF ST. MARK, AT VENICE.

This splendid old church has well been described as “a stupendous pile of oriental magnificence.” A thousand years do not cover the whole period of its existence. It is adorned with the columns and gems of the east, and no wonder, for every Venetian captain of a ship and every traveler of that nation was required to bring home something to adorn this temple: Greece and Constantinople, Palestine and all Europe, have contributed to its embellishment. It is totally unlike almost every other temple. It has round arches and regular domes, and from every part of them, there look down upon you, in permanent mosaic of gold and colored stones, and even precious gems, colossal images of the Saviour, of the virgin mother, of apostles and saints, and of multiform beings of religious allegory, so numerous and various, and so fresh, rich, and gorgeous, that you are quite bewildered, and involuntarily drop your eyes to the floor, where you are almost equally dazzled by the precious marbles, and jaspers, and serpentines, and verd-antique, and red porphyry, disposed in endless variety of most beautiful patterns, as if it had been the work of a magician artist. You read there also the instability of human glory in the worn and mutilated condition of parts of the pavement, and in the waving hollows and upward curves which prove that its foundations were laid in the sea. You again lift your eyes, and in the permanent mosaics (for no perishable frescoes or oil paintings are here) you read in large and distinct historical figures the early Bible history of our race, and the annals of the patriarchal families. Around the church, hang rich lamps of silver and gold. Huge candles and lights perpetually burning, symbolize the immortality of the soul. Passing out of the church, precious columns are on your right and on your left, columns of marble and porphyry brought from Constantinople, and Jerusalem, and St. Jean d’Acre. Lifting your eyes again to the roof, you there see domes, and dome upon dome; minarets and carvings in arabesque, and other rich forms of oriental architecture, with images and statues innumerable, standing as sentinels on all the cornices and angles, and in the niches.

THE CATHEDRAL OF MILAN.

Passing on to the last of the church edifices to be described, we come to the cathedral of Milan. A good picture is necessary to give even a faint impression of the richness and harmonious proportions of this wonderful building; but it is possible, from description, to form a correct conception of its magnitude, and of its principal parts. Its length is four hundred and eighty-five feet; breadth, two hundred and fifty-two; breadth across the transepts, two hundred and eighty-seven feet; hight of the nave, one hundred and fifty-three feet. The hight from the pavement to the top of the crown of the Madonna, on the summit of the spire, is three hundred and fifty-five feet. This cathedral is one of the most stupendous piles ever erected; but it is not yet finished, although it has been almost five hundred years in building. Several duomos have been destroyed that once occupied this place. The first cathedral was destroyed by Attila in the fifth century; the second was burnt by accident in 1075; and the third was partially ruined by Frederic Barbarossa. A lofty bell-tower, demolished by him, crushed the duomo in its fall. The first stone of the present cathedral was laid in March, 1386, by G. G. Visconti.

The interior presents a wilderness of columns, some of which are almost twelve feet in diameter at the base, and more than eight in the shaft. Fifty-two pillars, of the hight of eighty feet, support the pointed arches on which the roof rests. The exterior shows equally a wilderness of statues and pinnacles. Each pinnacle, if placed on the ground, would appear a considerable spire. The statues already in place number three thousand, and forty-live hundred are necessary to carry out the plan. Each pinnacle or minaret is crowned by a statue, and there are many more in the niches, among the pinnacles, as well as in other situations. In order to become acquainted with them, you must ascend to the roof, and then you will see life and meaning in them all; if seen from below, they appear indeed as a multitude of statues in marble, but without any obvious design. Whatever the moral may be, it is exhibited at an immense expense of treasure; but, in Italy, it is a national passion, which has come down to them from the Romans, to people their ideal world with marble forms, commemorating those who once lived on earth, or the imaginary beings of allegory and of a fabulous mythology. In this cathedral, in addition to statues of the size of life or beyond its dimensions, there are many of inferior magnitude: little pretty cherubs and imaginative beings are seen, single or in clusters. In all parts of the building, there are delicate and elaborately wrought carvings in marble, and even in situations where they can not be seen except by a diligent explorer. Ascending to the roof of the cathedral, and walking over it, the traveler will observe that it is composed of massive blocks of marble accurately adjusted to each other, and although the weight is immense, no cracks are visible. One moves as freely upon the roof, and with as much confidence as if a mountain of marble were beneath his feet; and the view from it is as glorious as it could be from a mountain rearing its lofty head in place of this structure reared by the art of man!

THE TOWER OF LONDON.

The Tower of London was anciently a palace occupied by the various sovereigns of England, till the reign of Queen Elizabeth. It was begun by William the Conqueror in 1073; and additions were made to it by several of the later monarchs. The extent within the walls is over twelve acres; and the exterior circuit of the ditch that surrounds it is over three thousand feet. A broad and handsome wharf, or gravel terrace, runs along the banks of the river parallel with the Tower, from which it is separated by the ditch.

Within the walls of the Tower are several streets; and a variety of buildings, the principal of which are, the church, the white tower, the ordnance office, the record office, the jewel office, the horse armory, the grand storehouse, the small armory, the houses belonging to the officers of the tower, barracks for the garrison, &c.

The white tower, which was the original building, is a large square structure, situated in the center of the fortress. On the top are four watch-towers, one of which, at present, is used as an observatory. It consists within of three lofty stories, beneath which are large, commodious vaults. In the first story are two grand rooms, one of which is a small armory for the sea-service, and contains various sorts of arms, curiously laid up, which would serve upward of ten thousand seamen. In the other rooms, in closets and presses, are abundance of warlike tools and instruments of death. In the upper stories, are arms and armorers’ tools. The models of all newly invented engines of destruction, which have been presented to the government, are preserved in this tower. On the top is a large cistern, filled from the Thames by a water-engine, to supply the garrison with water. The grand storehouse, which stands north of the white tower, is a plain building of brick and stone, three hundred and forty-five feet long and sixty feet broad. The jewel office is a little to the east of the grand storehouse. It is a dark and strong stone room. The horse armory is a brick building eastward of the white tower. The record office is in the Wakefield tower, opposite the platform. The rolls from the time of King John to the beginning of the reign of Richard III., are kept here in fifty-six wainscot presses. They contain the ancient tenures of land in England, the original laws and statutes, the rights of England to the dominion of the British seas, the forms of submission of the Scottish kings, and a variety of other records, &c. The principal entrance to the Tower is on the west. It consists of two gates on the outside of the ditch; a stone bridge built over the ditch, and a gate within the ditch. On the right hand, at the west entrance, the menagerie was formerly kept; but having been superseded by that belonging to the Zoölogical Society in the Regent’s park, it was broken up a few years ago. What was called the Spanish armory, contains the trophies of the famous victory of Queen Elizabeth over the Spanish armada. Among these the most remarkable are the thumb-screws, intended to be used to extort confession from the English where their money was hidden. In the same room are other curiosities; among which is the ax with which the unfortunate Anne Boleyn was beheaded, to gratify the capricious passions of her husband, Henry VIII. A representation of Queen Elizabeth in armor, standing by a cream-colored horse, attended by a page, is also shown in this room. Her majesty is dressed in the armor she wore at the time she addressed her army in the camp of Tilbury, 1588, with a white silk petticoat, ornamented with pearls and spangles.

The small armory is one of the finest rooms of its kind in Europe. It is three hundred and forty-five feet in length, and in general it contains complete stands of arms for no less than one hundred thousand men. They are disposed in a variety of figures, in a very elegant manner. Among them is a piece of ordnance from Egypt, sixteen feet long, and seven inches and a half bore. There are several other curiosities, among which are arms taken at various periods from rebels; the Highland broad-sword deserves particular notice. In many respects this room may be considered as one of the wonders of the modern world. The volunteer armory is in the white tower, and contains arms, piled in beautiful order, for thirty thousand men, with pikes, swords, &c., in immense numbers, arranged in stars and other devices. At the entrance of this room stands a fine figure of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk in the time of Henry VIII., in bright armor, and having the very lance he used in his lifetime, which is eighteen feet long. The sea armory is also in this tower, and contains arms for nearly fifty thousand sailors and marines. In this room are two elegant pieces of brass cannon, presented by the city of London to the Earl of Leicester, and various similar curiosities. Part of the royal train of artillery is kept on the ground-floor, under the small armory. The room is three hundred and eighty feet long, fifty feet wide, and twenty-four in hight. The artillery is ranged on each side, a passage ten feet in breadth being left in the center. In this room are twenty pillars that support the small armory above, which are hung round with implements of war, and trophies taken from the enemy. There are many peculiarly fine pieces of cannon to be seen here: one (of brass) is said to have cost two hundred pounds in ornamenting. It was made for Prince Henry, eldest son of James I. Others are extremely curious for their antiquity. Among them is one of the first invented cannon. It is formed of bars of iron hammered together, and bound with iron hoops. It has no carriage, but was moved by six rings, conveniently placed for that purpose. The horse armory is a noble room, crowded with curiosities. The armor of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and son of Edward III., is seven feet in hight. The sword and lance are of a proportionable size. A complete suit of armor, rough from the hammer, made for Henry VIII. when eighteen years old, is six feet high. The kings of England on horseback, are shown in armor, from the Conqueror to George II.