Today was a day of dead Jesuses and dead elephants. Obviously a lot more than that, but those were quite striking.
We started with the Saint-Chapelle. We previously went there for the Vivaldi concert, but that occurred after dark and the glass was not showing at its best. I wanted to wait for a sunny day, but the weather forecast is for gray and rain for the foreseeable future. Luckily, even with a gray day the windows glowed. The stained glass really is beautiful, tho some of the artistry is questionable. One panel looked to have a swordsman attacking a sprig of parsley. Another showed the worship of an artichoke.
Since we were on Ile de la Citie and it was raining, we quickly walked to the Notre Dame archaeological crypt. It’s really wonderful. They dug up the area in the 1950s for a carpark and discovered the very origins of the city. There are artifacts and foundations from every era, but the Roman period is highlighted. It definitely shows how the Seine used to be a wide and untamed river, and the Ile a small sandy bar. No longer!
The rain continued, so we stopped for a decent lunch then went to the Cluny Museum. There we were faced with all the Jesuses and elephants. Or rather, all the Christian iconography and altars carved from elephant ivory. It makes you wonder exactly how large the herds of elephants once were to supply that volume of ivory.
The supposed star of the Cluny is the unicorn tapestries. Personally, I am just not a tapestry person. Mosaics, yes. Tapestry, not so much. These were lovely, with flowers and animals and all the colors. But really, I think the star of the museum is the building itself. The only bummer was the closure of the frigidarium. Having just come from the crypt, we were interested in seeing the Roman baths that are located below the museum.
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| Stained Glass |
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| Really Brilliant Stained Glass |
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| At the Cluny. Brian called this the "Ventriloquist Jesus" |
~L
