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Avignon Cathedral: Sculptural group of the Calvary on the terrace of Notre-Dame-des-Doms

Date

Circa 1910

Location

Architecture Library, Hesburgh Libraries

Virgin and St. John at base of cross with Christ, surrounded by four angels.Current photos show the grouping, but originals are now in Musée du Petit-Palais (?) Probably it was essentially completed at the time of its consecration in 1101. The unaisled nave has five bays covered by a broken barrel-vault, with the exception of the easternmost bay, which carries a cupola and an octagonal lantern (probably added around 1130.) The west entrance porch was built in the late 12th century and leads into a barrel-vaulted narthex bay surmounted by a tall bell-tower, which was rebuilt in the 17th and 19th centuries. Cardinal Giacomo Gaetani Stefaneschi commissioned Simone Martini to paint frescoes (mostly destr. 1828) in the porch, of which a badly deteriorated Madonna of Humility (c. 1340; Avignon, Pal. Papes & Mus.) survives. In the 14th and the 16th centuries a series of lateral chapels was added to the nave. The Baroque tribune dates from 1671-1672, when the east end was enlarged and the original apse east of the cupola bay was replaced by a choir bay opening on to a polygonal apse.

Virgin and St. John at base of cross with Christ, surrounded by four angels.Current photos show the grouping, but originals are now in Musée du Petit-Palais (?)

Probably it was essentially completed at the time of its consecration in 1101. The unaisled nave has five bays covered by a broken barrel-vault, with the exception of the easternmost bay, which carries a cupola and an octagonal lantern (probably added around 1130.) The west entrance porch was built in the late 12th century and leads into a barrel-vaulted narthex bay surmounted by a tall bell-tower, which was rebuilt in the 17th and 19th centuries. Cardinal Giacomo Gaetani Stefaneschi commissioned Simone Martini to paint frescoes (mostly destr. 1828) in the porch, of which a badly deteriorated Madonna of Humility (c. 1340; Avignon, Pal. Papes & Mus.) survives. In the 14th and the 16th centuries a series of lateral chapels was added to the nave. The Baroque tribune dates from 1671-1672, when the east end was enlarged and the original apse east of the cupola bay was replaced by a choir bay opening on to a polygonal apse.
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