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Cathedral of Saint-Étienne

Cathedral of Saint-Étienne

Saint Stephen's Cathedral

France, Toulouse

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Categories: Story Toulouse, architecture Toulouse, religion Toulouse

Rating 8.0

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Cathedral of Saint-Étienne

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GPS: 43.5999, 1.45052

Cathedral of Saint-Étienne

Saint Stephen's Cathedral

France, Toulouse

Toulouse Cathedral (French: Cathédrale Saint-Étienne de Toulouse) is a Roman Catholic church located in the city of Toulouse, France. The cathedral is a national monument and the seat of the archbishop of Toulouse.
It is believed that the cathedral was built on the foundations of a chapel built in the 3rd century by Saint Saturninus, sent to Christianize the Gauls and martyred in Toulouse. It is also believed that it was reconstructed by Saint Exupery, Bishop of Toulouse, one hundred and fifty years later. This first documented cathedral dates from the beginning of the 5th century. At the moment, nothing remains of the original building.
Around 1078, a Romanesque cathedral was built on the same site. Further, over the course of several centuries, the building was rebuilt and expanded several times. The styles and decoration of the cathedral changed.
Much of the cathedral today is of the Southern French Gothic style of architecture.
The surviving Romanesque parts include the south wall of the choir and the partitions in the north and south of the current nave.
After the outbreak of the French Revolution, the cathedral was transformed into the "Temple of Reason". Many statues were broken into pieces. In 1794 and 1795, the cathedral served as a collection point for iron and other metal objects, in particular bells taken from all the surrounding churches.
On April 19, 1802, under Napoleon Bonaparte, the church was officially returned to the Catholic Church. The municipality of Toulouse assumed the costs of the necessary major repairs. Old stained glass windows destroyed during the revolution were gradually replaced with new windows or windows made up of salvaged pieces of old glass.
The cathedral was built of brick, like many churches in the south of France, due to the lack of suitable stone. The irregular western façade exists because the cathedral consists of two unfinished churches from different periods, clumsily stacked together.
The interior is just as confusing as the exterior because the two sections are not on the same axis and juxtapose two styles of Gothic architecture. A massive round column, built at the beginning of the 16th century, now stands absurdly between the two parts, aligned with the center of the nave to the west and with the southern columns of the choir to the west. Of the 15 chapels, the oldest dates from 1279–1286, but most were built in the 14th century. Most of the stained glass is from the 19th century, but St. Vincent de Paul's chapel has glass from nearly every century from the late 13th. This is the oldest stained glass window in Toulouse.

REVIEWS

All reviews (1)

Mademoisele

Traveled 1 year ago

Rating 8

A collection of different architectures and historical eras

The originality and highlight of this cathedral is its asymmetry, as it consists of several architectural elements erected in different historical eras. The cathedral adjoins the former episcopal palace, which now houses the prefecture of the Haute-Garonne department. The first mention of the cathedral dates back to 1071, but the exact date of construction is not known, since different parts were built at different times. Something then collapsed, burned, rebuilt, restored. And so for many centuries.→

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