Rouen Cathedral
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Rouen Cathedral | |
Rouen Cathedral was the world's tallest building from 1876 to 1880.* |
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Preceded by | St. Nikolai, Hamburg |
Surpassed by | Cologne Cathedral |
Information | |
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Location | Rouen, France |
Status | Complete |
Constructed | 1202-1880 |
Technical Details | |
Floor count | n/a |
* Fully habitable, self-supported, from main entrance to rooftop; see world's tallest structures for other listings. |
Rouen Cathedral (French: Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Rouen) is a Gothic cathedral in Rouen, in northwestern France. It is the seat of the Archbishop of Rouen.
[edit] Features
Rouen Cathedral contains a tomb of Richard the Lionheart which contains his heart. His bowels were buried at the foot of the tower in Limousin, France, from which was fired the crossbow bolt which killed him, and the rest of his remains were buried next to his father at Fontevraud Abbey near Chinon and Saumur, France. Richard's effigy is on top of the tomb, and his name is inscribed in Latin on the side.
Rouen Cathedral was the tallest building in the world from 1876 to 1880.
The cathedral was bombed in 1944, taking several direct hits that narrowly missed destroying key pillars.
[edit] In Art
- The Cathedral was the subject for a series of paintings by the Impressionist painter Claude Monet who painted the same scene at different times of the day.
- Gustave Flaubert was inspired by the stained glass windows of St. Julian and of Salome, basing two of his Three Tales on them.
- Joris-Karl Huysmans wrote La Cathédrale about the Cathedral, a novel based on an intensive examination of the building.