Sainte-Chapelle






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Exterior
Sainte-Chapelle

Altar
Sainte-Chapelle

Stained Glass
Sainte-Chapelle

Stained Glass
Sainte-Chapelle


You must view Sainte-Chapelle on a sunny day.  Its 15 perfect stained-glass windows, soaring 50 feet high to a star-studded vaulted ceiling, will take your breath away.  You'll think you've stepped into a kaleidoscope.  Louis IX, the only French king to become a saint, had the Sainte-Chapelle built as a shrine to house the relics of Christ's crucifixion, including the Crown of Thorns that Louis bought from the emperor of Constantinople.  Building the Sainte-Chapelle cost Louis less than buying the hideously expensive Crown of Thorns, which now resides in the vault at Notre-Dame.

Built between 1246 and 1248, Sainte-Chapelle consists of two chapels one on top of the other.  Palace servants worshiped at the chapelle basse (lower chapel); it is ornamented with fleur-de-lis designs.  The chapelle haute (upper chapel) is considered one of the highest achievements of Gothic art.  The stained-glass windows'  1,134 scenes trace the biblical story form the Garden of Eden to the Apocalypse.  

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