Carcassonne Cathedral
The cathedral Saint-Michel de Carcassonne is the current cathedral of the city of Carcassonne ( Département Aude ) in southern France. However, it has never achieved the same importance as the former St-Nazaire et St-Celse cathedral in the Cité .
location
The cathedral is located in the lower town of Carcassonne ( ville-basse ), between Boulevard Barbès and Rue Voltaire.
Building history
The church was built from 1262 to 1283 as a simple city parish church in the style of the regional gothique méridional . After devastation by the soldiers of the "Black Prince" ( Edward of Woodstock ) in 1355 repairs and minor changes were made. As part of the Concordat of 1801 , the church was elevated to the status of cathedral of the diocese of Carcassonne , which had existed since the 6th century . In the middle of the 19th century a fire caused such devastating damage to the building structure that Viollet-le-Duc and his assistants spent almost 20 years removing it.
architecture
The west side of today's episcopal church is dominated by a low-lying portal with a tympanum and a beautiful Gothic rose window . On the city side, Saint Michel has a squat tower that is transformed from a square into an octagon. A special feature is the location of the church: From the boulevard you have to go down a few steps, as the cathedral was once integrated into the fortifications of the lower town - remnants of it can be seen on the south side.
The interior of the cathedral presents itself today as a broad, but relatively dark, single-nave structure, the side walls of which - as is usual in many churches in the Midi - open into chapels. Strangely enough, the nave wall is pierced by round windows. The cathedral is closed off to the east by a three-part apse with beautiful glass windows.
While the capitals have only simple abstract-vegetable ornaments, some column bases are provided with leaf tongues and depictions of animals.
Furnishing
altar
The most important part of the church furnishings is the altar structure - created in the years 1736–1746 by Jean-Baptiste Peru II from Avignon - consisting of two beautiful marble angels and a tabernacle with the four creatures of the Apocalypse ( tetramorph ). A balustrade is made of the reddish marble of Caunes-Minervois .
organ
The current organ was built in 1860 by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll and placed in a neo-Gothic case on the newly built gallery . This instrument has been restored several times, most recently in 1998. It has 42 stops on three manuals and pedal . The playing and stop actions are mechanical.
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Individual evidence
Web links
Coordinates: 43 ° 12 ′ 39.5 ″ N , 2 ° 21 ′ 4 ″ E