Notre-Dame d'Amiens

Timeline

1. 1137-1152

   Romanesque predecessor

   A Romanesque cathedral is built on the site between 1137 and 1152; in 1193 it hosts the wedding of King Philip II of France.

2. 1206

   Relic of John the Baptist

   Wallon de Sarton brings the reputed head of John the Baptist from Constantinople, turning Amiens into a major northern-French pilgrimage destination.

3. 1218

   Fire destroys predecessor

   Fire destroys the Romanesque cathedral, clearing the site - and motivating the funding - for an entirely new building campaign.

4. 1220

   Foundation stone

   Bishop Evrard de Fouilloy lays the first stone of the new cathedral; Robert de Luzarches becomes master builder and adopts an unusual west-to-east construction order.

5. 1236

   Nave completed

   The nave and transept aisles are finished; modifications to the triforium and clerestory introduce early Rayonnant features into French Gothic.

6. 1269

   Choir clerestory complete

   The upper windows of the choir are in place, bringing the bulk of the cathedral to completion in under fifty years from foundation.

7. 1288

   Labyrinth set

   A floor labyrinth bearing carved portraits of master builders Luzarches and the Cormonts is set in the nave to mark the building's symbolic completion.

8. 1498

   Iron tie chain installed

   Mason Pierre Tarisel installs a wrought-iron tie chain around the upper masonry, fitted red-hot so that cooling contraction clamps the cracked structure together; it still functions today.

9. 1751

   Choir remodelled

   The choir furnishings are reworked for Baroque taste, and the medieval rood screen separating choir from nave is removed.

10. 1914-1918

    First World War

    Amiens is a key Allied logistics hub close to the Western Front and is heavily shelled, but the cathedral is sandbagged and survives the war essentially intact.

11. 1939-1945

    Second World War

    The city centre is heavily bombed; the stained glass is evacuated in advance and the cathedral again escapes serious structural damage.

12. 1981

    UNESCO inscription

    The cathedral is inscribed as UNESCO World Heritage Site 162 under criteria (i) and (ii), recognising its mastery and influence on French Gothic architecture.

13. 1992-2000s

    Laser facade cleaning

    A long campaign of laser cleaning of the west facade also reveals traces of the original 13th-century polychrome that once covered the sculpture.

14. 2003

    Chroma show launched

    The annual 'Chroma' sound-and-light show begins, projecting reconstructed medieval polychromy back onto the sculptures during summer and Christmas evenings.

Detailed History

The story begins with the 1218 fire that destroyed the Romanesque cathedral built on the site between 1137 and 1152. Bishop Evrard de Fouilloy (1211-1222) laid the first stone of a successor in 1220 and appointed Robert de Luzarches as master builder. Luzarches reformed Gothic construction by standardising stone components - cut to consistent dimensions rather than unique to each position - which dramatically accelerated work. He was succeeded by Thomas de Cormont (1228-1258) and Thomas's son Renaud de Cormont (1258-1288). Unusually, construction proceeded west to east, beginning with the nave, which was complete by 1236; the upper choir windows were in place by 1269. The transept arms were finished by the end of the 13th century, and the facade and upper towers in the early 14th. From start to substantially-finished structure took about 70 years, exceptionally short for a building of this scale. The head of John the Baptist, brought from Constantinople in 1206 by canon Wallon de Sarton, turned Amiens into a major pilgrimage destination, and steady donations underwrote construction. The 15th century brought a structural crisis. The original flying buttresses around the choir had been placed too high to fully counteract the outward thrust of the vault. In 1497 the transept-crossing pillars and two chevet columns showed serious cracks. In 1498 mason Pierre Tarisel installed a wrought-iron tie chain around the upper masonry, fitted red-hot so thermal contraction would clamp the structure together - still holding today. Reinforcement followed in 1503. The 16th century saw the west rose rebuilt in Flamboyant tracery; in 1751 the choir furnishings were remodelled to Baroque taste. Reliquaries were destroyed during the French Revolution, but the building escaped serious damage. In World War I Amiens was a key Allied logistics hub close to the Western Front and was heavily shelled; in World War II the city centre was severely bombed. The cathedral survived both, sandbagged and with stained glass evacuated. UNESCO inscribed the cathedral in 1981 (site 162). From the 1990s into the 2000s the west facade was cleaned by laser, also revealing traces of the original 13th-century polychromy. Since 2003 the 'Chroma' sound-and-light show has projected reconstructed polychromy back onto the sculptures on summer and Christmas evenings.

Cultural Significance

Amiens is one of the principal masterworks of French High Gothic, listed by UNESCO in 1981 (site 162) under criteria (i) - 'a masterpiece of human creative genius' - and (ii) - 'an important interchange of values on architectural development.' With Chartres, Reims and Notre-Dame de Paris it forms the canonical group of 13th-century French cathedrals, but Amiens is distinguished by unusual stylistic unity: the bulk was built in a single campaign between 1220 and about 1270, where most peers absorbed several generations of changing taste. The triforium and clerestory, modified from 1236, and the enlarged choir clerestory windows of the mid-1250s, are early manifestations of the Rayonnant style that would dominate later 13th-century Gothic. The reliquary of John the Baptist, brought from Constantinople in 1206, made Amiens a major pilgrimage destination. The cathedral remains the seat of the Bishop of Amiens. Its west-facade sculpture is called the 'Amiens Bible in stone': the three portals - Last Judgement, Mother of God and Saint Firmin - encode biblical narratives in a programme legible to medieval pilgrims. The 'Beau Dieu' Christ trumeau and the 'Vierge Doree' on the south transept are among the most reproduced French Gothic sculptures. John Ruskin devoted his 1880 'Bible of Amiens' to it, and Marcel Proust translated Ruskin into French, calling Amiens the 'queen of Gothic.'

Architectural Details

Amiens is the largest French Gothic cathedral by interior volume - approximately 200,000 cubic metres, more than twice Notre-Dame de Paris - with a total length of about 145 metres, transept width of 70 metres, and a nave vault 42.3 metres above the pavement, the tallest in France. The plan is a three-aisled basilica with a projecting transept and a chevet of seven radiating chapels around the choir ambulatory. The west front follows the canonical three-storey scheme: triple sculpted portals, the Kings' Gallery, and the great rose window, framed by twin towers of uneven height (north 66 metres, south 61.7 metres). The central crossing spire, a slender wooden fleche, rises to 112.7 metres. The nave is seven bays long. Robert de Luzarches's standardisation of stone components anticipated industrial pre-fabrication by centuries. The flying buttresses around the choir were doubled up in the original campaign and supplemented again in the 15th century after cracks appeared. Vaults are typical quadripartite ribbed vaults, but slender compound piers and an unusually tall clerestory exaggerate the verticality. The west facade sculpture (1220-1236) includes the 'Beau Dieu' trumeau Christ and the 'Vierge Doree' on the south transept - masterpieces of 13th-century Gothic sculpture. The choir triforium and enlarged clerestory windows, added from 1236 and 1255, are early Rayonnant in style.