St-Sulpice (Paris)
Saint-Sulpice is a Catholic parish church in the Paris district of Saint-Germain-des-Prés (in the 6th arrondissement ). It is the holy Sulpicius II. Bourges as patron ordained .
The church is 118 m long and 57 m wide. With these dimensions, it is only slightly shorter than the Notre Dame de Paris cathedral and thus the second largest church in the city. Among the naves are several crypts , whose bases are together almost as large as the base of the church itself.
Saint-Sulpice was chosen as a burial site by some of the largest noble families in France (including the Condé , Conti and Luynes families ). The composer and long-time organist of St. Sulpice, Charles Marie Widor , is also buried in the crypt . Famous people were baptized and married in the Church. B. Victor Hugo and Heinrich Heine .
Significant personalities from the St. Sulpice seminary such as B. Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord emerged.
The main organ of the church, famous around the world and a masterpiece by François-Henri Clicquot and Aristide Cavaillé-Coll , which has largely been preserved in its original state , was one of the largest in Europe at the time it was built and was or is played by famous musicians.
history
The Romanesque , several times expanded previous building from the 12th century was largely demolished in the 17th century. In 1646 the foundation stone was laid for a new building according to the plans of Christophe Gamard, in 1655 Louis Le Vau took over the construction management. After his resignation, Daniel Gittard presented a design that was implemented from 1660 onwards. As early as 1678, a lack of money interrupted the construction work. Only the choir with access and chapels as well as the north transept and the crossing piers were finished at that time. The nave , crossing and the southern arm of the transept were built by Gilles-Marie Oppenordt between 1719 and 1736 .
Saint-Sulpice is a three-aisled basilica with an ambulatory choir and a transept barely protruding over the line of flight . Between the buttresses there are chapels , below which the Lady Chapel ( Chapelle de la Vierge ) stands out at the choir head. The central nave has two zones: below pillar arcades with a Corinthian order of pilasters in front , above the vaulting zone with a longitudinal barrel including stitch caps for the upper cladding windows. The overall disposition is to be understood as a reduction of the scheme of the Gothic Paris Cathedral Notre-Dame , conveyed via the parish church of St-Eustache de Paris . Detail forms in the older components (crown-rib-like profile, keystone-like rosettes) are also reminiscent of Gothic models.
The western double tower facade, although it was built at the time of the construction work on the nave , belongs to a newer style. The theater architect Giovanni Niccolò Servandoni , a Florentine of French descent, won a competition in 1732 . His design gained more and more ancient Roman size and already points to early classicism , a tendency that Jean-François Chalgrin continued with his design for new tower open floors (only north tower realized).
Servandoni had actually become famous in Paris with his baroque stage and festival decorations, which also took him to Lisbon , Dresden and London . And a similar tendency towards theatrical display of magnificence can also be found here, albeit in a somewhat ambiguous version. What works on a stage doesn't necessarily work on a church facade. Servandoni has by far not achieved what is so convincing in other large baroque churches. The facade of St-Sulpice is proportionally unbalanced. The towers do not combine the two large colonnaded halls .
In 1642, Jean-Jacques Olier (1608–1657) founded the Congregation of the Sulpizians , a Catholic order, and the St. Sulpice seminary , with the main purpose of academic and spiritual education for priests, which still exists today. The seminary and the school of Saint-Sulpice were the spiritual centers of the French Revolution . Of them are Sieyès and Talleyrand , leaders of the revolution emerged.
During the revolution, the church was called the Temple of Victory ( Temple de la Victoire ), which is still remembered today by a sign above the central door of the main entrance, but shortly afterwards it was looted and damaged. As part of the reconstruction work, the first south chapel was decorated with two frescoes by Eugène Delacroix from the years 1858 to 1861, which show Jacob's battle with the angel and the story of Heliodorus . It is noteworthy in this context that Delacroix was possibly a son of Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord , who had been trained in the St. Sulpice seminary.
Since the fire of Notre-Dame in 2019 , St-Sulpice has temporarily performed the de facto function of a cathedral (with regard to diocesan liturgical events).
Organs
Saint-Sulpice has two organs : the large main organ on the west gallery and a choir organ. In Saint-Sulpice there are regular organ concerts ( Auditions des Grandes Orgues à Saint Sulpice ) on Sundays around 12:00 noon (following the high mass, which is introduced with a 15-minute “prelude” on the main organ from 10:45 am ).
Main organ
The main organ goes back to an instrument that was built by François-Henri Clicquot from 1776 to 1781 and already had a remarkable 64 stops on five manuals and pedal . The unique monumental organ case was designed by the architect Jean-François Chalgrin .
From 1834 extensive renovations were carried out by Daublaine-Callinet until the organ was inaugurated again in April 1846 with 64 registers. However, the result of the work was not satisfactory. Therefore, from 1855 onwards , Aristide Cavaillé-Coll initially took over the tuning and maintenance work and finally rebuilt the instrument between 1857 and 1862 (using around 40 percent of the pipework from Clicquot and Callinet). During this time (1850–1863) , Georg Schmitt from Trier was organist at Saint-Sulpice.
The instrument was inaugurated in April 1862 with 100 stops on five manuals and pedal and was one of the largest organs in Europe. Today it is considered to be one of the main works of the French-Romantic organ building, whereby it harmoniously combines numerous originally preserved registers from the Baroque period with pipes from the 19th century in a unique way.
Since then the organ has only been slightly modified: in 1903 Charles Mutin exchanged two registers; in addition, the partial work "Bombarde" (originally assigned to the 4th manual) was moved as "Solo" to the 5th manual and the "Récit expressif" from the 5th to the 4th manual; 1933-1934 the Société Pleyel Cavaillé-Coll added two pedal registers (Principal 16 ′ and 8 ′). In the seventies the worn pedal keyboard was replaced and the Plein jeu harmonique III-VI in the Positif was replaced by a high-lying neoclassical mixture; the Plein jeu harmonique was stored and was preserved. Between 1989 and 1991, the now listed instrument ( Monument Historique ) by Jean Renaud from Nantes underwent extensive restoration and general cleaning. The Plein jeu harmonique was reinserted in its original place in the positif.
The original preserved condition of the great organ of Saint-Sulpice is the titular organist Louis James Alfred Lefébure-Wély (1863–1869), Charles-Marie Widor (1870–1933), Marcel Dupré (1934–1971), Jean-Jacques Grunenwald (1973 –1982) and Daniel Roth (since 1985), who respected their instrument and protected it from changes. The Association pour le rayonnement des orgues Aristide Cavaillé-Coll de l'église Saint-Sulpice (Paris) , chaired by Daniel Roth, has been campaigning for the inclusion of the Great Organ in the UNESCO World Heritage for years .
Many well-known composers, including Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy , Franz Liszt and Anton Bruckner , got to know and played this instrument. The organ currently has 102 registers (approx. 7,000 pipes) on five manuals and pedal. The play and key action mechanically (with Barker machines ).
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Couple:
- Normal coupling: I / II, II / I, III / I, IV / I, IV / III, V / I, I / P, II / P, IV / P
- Sub-octave coupling: I / I, II / II, III / III, IV / IV, V / V
- Remarks:
- (C) = Original pipe material from 1781 (Clicquot)
Choir organ
The choir organ was built in 1858 by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll using pipe material from Daublaine Callinet (1847). In 1868 maintenance was carried out by Cavaillé-Coll. In the early 20th century, minor changes were made by Charles Mutin . In 1981 maintenance was carried out by J. Picaud. The instrument has mechanical sliding chests with 21 registers on two manuals and pedal. The disposition :
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- Coupling : II / I, I / P, II / P
- Playing aids : Appel Grand Orgue, Appel Anches Récit
Organists
- Until 1601 or 1614: Nicolas Pescheur
- approx. 1618 – approx. 1651: Vincent Coppeau
- approx. 1651–1702: Guillaume-Gabriel Nivers
- 1702 - approx. 1714: Jean Baptiste Totin
- 1715–1749: Louis-Nicolas Clérambault
- 1749–1760: César François Clérambault
- 1761–1773: Evrard Dominique Clérambault
- 1773–1783: Claude Etienne Luce (assistant from 1771: Evrard Dominique Clérambault)
- 1783–1819: Nicolas Séjan
- 1819–1849: Louis Nicolas Séjan
- 1850–1863: Georg (Georges) Schmitt
- 1863–1869: Louis-James-Alfred Lefébure-Wély
- 1870–1933: Charles-Marie Widor (Assistant from 1892 to 1900: Louis Vierne )
- 1934–1971: Marcel Dupré
- 1973–1982: Jean-Jacques Grunenwald
- Since 1985: Daniel Roth and Sophie-Véronique Cauchefer-Choplin (titulaire adjointe)
Lunchtime
In 1727, the English watchmaker Henry Sully set up a noon wise man (Méridienne) in the church on behalf of the priest Languet de Gercy . At midday, sunlight falls through a hole in the south wall onto a brass line on the floor and, as an extension, onto an 11-meter-high obelisk ( gnomon ), see adjacent picture. The line is scaled with calendar data, so that in addition to the moment of noon, calendar and astronomical data are also displayed: the summer solstice in the picture in front, the equinoxes (beginning of spring and autumn) near the altar , the winter solstice on top of the obelisk.
Worth knowing about
In Dan Brown's famous novel Da Vinci Code , the action takes place partly in the church of Saint-Sulpice, where the gnomon (that is, the obelisk, which is not used here as a shadow thrower, but only serves to extend the line of the sun) as " pagan astronomical device of Egyptian origin ”, which may seem a little exaggerated and not entirely correct, or at least one could object to it. The obelisk shows a clear Egyptian influence, but it can be assumed that it was hardly used in ancient Egypt, at least it would be very difficult to prove. In addition, it is easy to see that its shape does not entirely correspond to the Egyptian variant and that it has undergone a certain modification. For example, there is a small ball on its tip. The principle itself (namely that of a sundial to determine the noon line), on which this entire facility is based, probably has its roots in ancient Babylon. In any case, the Hellenes (the ancient Greeks) are said to have taken it over from the Babylonians.
Furthermore, it is said about the course of the sun line on the ground that this serves to display the Paris meridian , but this runs a little further away in an easterly direction. This distance is approx. 118 meters, which is pretty much the total length of the church. This at least allows the assumption that with the help of this length the former prime meridian could be determined very precisely from the given noon line and possibly influenced its positioning. In this context, it is also worth mentioning that Jacques Cassini calculated the prime meridian for the Paris observatory around 1718, i.e. just at the beginning of the reworking of the church, that a certain simultaneity of the determination of the prime meridian and the establishment of the noon line was found here in St-Sulpice.
Bells
In the tower of St. Sulpice there are 5 bells that are among the most important chimes in Paris:
No. |
Surname |
Casting year |
Caster |
Mass (kg) |
Diameter (mm) |
Chime |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Thérèse | 1824 | Osmond-Dubois | 6000 | 2085 | g 0 |
2 | Caroline | 1824 | Osmond-Dubois | 3900 | 1880 | as 0 |
3 | Louise | 1828 | Osmond-Dubois | 2780 | 1680 | h 0 |
4th | Marie | 1828 | Osmond-Dubois | 2300 | 1580 | c 1 |
5 | Henriette-Louise | 1824 | Osmond-Dubois | 900 | 1165 | e 1 |
Funerals
The following were buried in the Saint-Sulpice church:
- 1716: Nicolas Auguste de La Baume, marquis de Monterevel (23 December 1645 - 11 October 1716) Marshal of France
- 1742: Louise Élisabeth de Bourbon-Orléans (* December 11, 1709; † June 16, 1742), Mademoiselle de Montpensier , daughter of Philippe II. D'Orléans and his wife Françoise Marie de Blois , married Louis I, King of Spain
- 1764: Louis Charles de Saint-Albin (April 5, 1698 - April 9, 1764), Bishop of Laon and Archbishop of Cambrai, illegitimate son of the aforementioned Philippe II. D'Orléans and Florence Pelegrin
- 1775: Louise Élisabeth de Bourbon-Condé (born November 22, 1693 - † May 28, 1775), Mademoiselle de Charolais , later Mademoiselle de Bourbon , daughter of Louis III. de Bourbon, prince de Condé and his wife Louise Françoise de Bourbon
also:
- 1663: Lubin Baugin (1610–1663), painter
- 1686: François Blondel (around 1618–1686), master builder and engineer
- 1700: Armande Béjart (1642–1700), actress and theater director, widow of Molière
- 1717: Jean Jouvenet (1644–1717), painter
Other events
- In 1772 Marie-Angélique Diderot, Denis Diderot's daughter , married the industrialist Abel François Nicolas Caroillon de Vandeul here.
- In 1822 Victor Hugo and Adèle Foucher married here .
- In 1841 Heinrich Heine and the shoe seller Eugenie Crescentia Mirat, who had known each other since 1834, got married here .
- The Marquis de Sade and Charles Baudelaire were baptized here (1740 and 1821, respectively).
- Dan Brown's novel “The Da Vinci Code ” contains a scene at the beginning in which the fallen monk Silas is looking for the Holy Grail in the church under the meridian . There is also a scene in Saint-Sulpice in the Hollywood film version " The Da Vinci Code ".
- On March 17, 2019, a door of the south transept burned. Nobody got hurt. According to police, the fire was started intentionally.
Fontaine Visconti
In front of the church is the Visconti fountain, built in 1844 according to plans by Louis Visconti , after whom it is named. The fountain also has other names, such as Fontaine des Quatre Evêques ('Fountain of the Four Bishops'). None of the four depicted church superiors ever made it to the cardinal, which is why the name Fontaine des Quatre points Cardinaux is common, where point has the meaning of 'never'. The fountain would then be called: Fountain of those who were never cardinals. The names of the bishops are: Jacques Bénigne Bossuet , François Fénelon , Jean-Baptiste Massillon and Esprit Fléchier . The lions at the feet of those honored here do not have the usual classical dignity, but rather show extremely aggressive behavior, but in this form very convincing.
literature
- Julia Droste-Hennings, Thorsten Droste : Paris. A city and its myth. DuMont-Reiseverlag, Cologne 2003, ISBN 3-7701-6090-8 , p. 241f.
- Heinfried Wischermann: Architecture Guide Paris. Gerd Hatje Verlag, Ostfildern 1997, ISBN 3-7757-0606-2 , p. 48.
Web links
- Église Saint-Sulpice in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French)
- Parish website (French)
- Photographs by Eugène Atget, 1898
- Association pour le rayonnement des orgues Aristide Cavaillé-Coll de l'église Saint-Sulpice (Paris): information on organs and organists (English, French)
- Document for the consecration of the organ in 1862 by Jules Antoine Lissajous
- St-Sulpice (Paris). In: arch INFORM . (Construction date disputed)
- Saint Sulpice pictures of the square and church
Individual evidence
- ^ Sunday Mass and Audition & Concerts (in English) . www.aross.fr. Accessed May 4, 2018.
- ^ Association Aristide Cavaillé-Coll / Kurt Lueders (ed.): Le Grand-Orgue de Saint-Sulpice et ses Organistes . La Flûte Harmonique, Numéro spécial , no. 59/60 (1991), pp. 7-29.
- ^ Association pour le rayonnement des orgues Aristide Cavaillé-Coll de l'église Saint-Sulpice (Paris): Who we are (in English) . www.aross.fr. Accessed May 4, 2018.
- ↑ The great organ and Great organ specification . www.aross.fr. Accessed May 4, 2018.
- ^ Roth, Daniel and Pierre-François Dub-Attenti: The Neoclassical Organ and the Great Aristide Cavaillé-Coll Organ of Saint-Sulpice, Paris . London: Rhinegold Publishing, 2014.
- ↑ No trompette en chamade, but a solo reed with cranked bell, standing on high wind pressure, on its own wind chest directly under the swell box of the "Récit expressif". Great organ specification (in English) . www.aross.fr. Accessed May 4, 2018.
- ^ The choir organ (in English) . www.aross.fr. Accessed May 4, 2018.
- ↑ Choir organ specification (in English) . www.aross.fr. Accessed May 4, 2018.
- ^ Organists of the great organ . www.aross.fr. Accessed May 4, 2018.
- ↑ The interior shots of Saint-Sulpice in the film were reconstructed with the help of a “green screen” in the studio. The Da Vinci Code - The Da Vinci Code (2006) . www.imdb.com. Accessed February 5, 2018.
- ↑ Video on YouTube .
- ↑ Flames hit the second largest church in Paris . In: Reuters . March 18, 2019 ( kathisch.de [accessed April 16, 2019]).
- ↑ Le feu qui a pris dans l'édifice dimanche est parti d'un tas de vêtements stockés sur place. March 18, 2019 ( leparisien.fr [accessed April 17, 2019]).
Coordinates: 48 ° 51 ′ 4 " N , 2 ° 20 ′ 5" E