Notre-Dame Church. The Nave.
The church of Notre-Dame with its enormous buttressed tower surmounted by a crocketted spire, is 400 feet high and with its satellites, St. Saviour and the Belfry, dominates the entire city and surroundings. It is said to be the largest brick construction in existence.
The church is a strange mixture of restorations, additions and alterations, which have changed its character and destroyed its harmony. The general style is early Gothic, and reveals its 13th century origin. Two side-aisles were added to the three original naves, the first about the middle of the 14th century, and the second a century later. The façade nearest the hospital, flanked with round turrets, was badly mutilated. Recent attempts have been made to restore it, and at the same time to suppress certain unbecoming, extraneous masonry-work, but through lack of documents, the work was necessarily carried out in a more or less hypothetical manner. At the foot of the gigantic tower and in striking contrast with its severe nudity is the Radial Gothic Baptistère, an ancient protruding porch dating from the 15th century, the double arcade of which was walled up to form a chapel for the font.
The Virgin and Child.
By Michael Angelo.
In the interior one is struck, on entering, by the work of simple juxtaposition which added a side-aisle to the original one, by opening the arcades in the old wall and setting new pillars against the ancient buttresses. The whole of the interior bears marks of similar treatment. The vaulting of the naves was reconstructed in the 18th century, when the present heavy triforium was built. The small arcades which ornamented the walls were filled in, but portions have recently been uncovered and restored.
The building is 237 feet long and 165 feet wide. An 18th century rood-loft surmounted with an organ-case separates the nave from the choir. Above the organ a triumphal cross (1594) is suspended from the vaulting. The choir stalls, like the cathedral, bear the arms of the Knights of the Golden Fleece, in commemoration of the 11th. Chapter held in Notre-Dame in 1468.
The principal interest of the church lies in the works of art which it contains: The Virgin and Child by Michael Angelo, and the Tombs of the last two Sovereigns of the House of Burgundy: Charles-le-Téméraire and his daughter Marie, wife of Maximilian of Austria, whose mausoleum at Innsbruck, is likewise a marvel.