Reims, St Nicaise

engraving and Viollet le Duc

This building played an important role in the deveoplment of the gothic great church. Started in 1231 under Hugh Libergier the rose window was for the first time fully integrated into the lancets below. This process was begun at Chartres in the 1230's, but here at St Nicaise the process was more thorough and delicate. The original rose dated from 1241 but the rose shown in a number of engravings, of which the one by De Son of 1625 is the most famous, shows the flamboyant rose of c.1550, the original having been destroyed in a storm in 1540/41. Viollet le Duc seems to have drawn what he thought the original to be like, the Rayonnant design shown on p. in the book.

Above is a detail from an anymous C17 painting called the "Destruction Imaginaire de l'Abbaye de St. Nicaise". Ironically the abbey was destroyed after the Revolution some hundred or so years later! There is not quite enough of the rose to discern its precise structure, another few inches would have confirmed the flamboyant character! On the right is an engraving from the end of the C17 entitled Monasticon Gallicanum that crudely suggests a flamboyant character to the rose.