Archbishop Theoderich von Wied hired builders from Champagne to replace the southern part of a dilapidated earlier Roman double church. The article names no architect. The current estimate dates construction to about 1230 to about 1260, while a painted inscription gives 1227 to 1243. It calls the church the earliest in French High Gothic style outside France, though it elsewhere says Early Gothic.
The plan is cruciform and centralized, shaped like a rose, with four portals in rounded niches. Twelve columns carry painted apostles and the twelve articles of the Apostles' Creed, and several Gothic pillars stand on Roman column foundations. The article gives no materials or dimensions.
A high spire added in 1492 was destroyed by a storm on July 2, 1631. The Second World War destroyed the roof. UNESCO listed the church in 1986, and the Roman excavations below are not open to the public.
Comments