Plans were credited to Léon Vaudoyer but drawn by his 23-year-old former pupil Henri-Jacques Espérandieu, named architect on June 23, 1853. The first stone was laid on September 11, 1853, and the basilica was consecrated in June 1864. Espérandieu died in 1874, and Henri Révoil finished the interior. The bronze doors came in 1897.
The upper church is Neo-Byzantine, in white limestone alternating with green stone from near Florence, over a Romanesque crypt carved from rock. The nave is 107 feet (32.7 m) long, and the bell tower is 135 feet (41 m) high. The gilded copper Virgin is 37 feet (11.2 m) tall. The nave has about 1,200 square meters of mosaics made from 1886 to 1892.
Fighting on the hill in August 1944 damaged the stone and mosaics, repaired in a restoration from 2001 to 2008. Visitors climb a double staircase to a drawbridge, and the bell tower is closed.
Comments