PARIS: CLUNY MUSEUM
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The pictures on this page are from two different trips to Paris. A couple of the first photos - the ones with blue sky and sun - were taken in Fall, 1975. When Marco and I went in January, 2000, it was overcast most of the time. The ones with gray sky and all of the interior pictures are from this trip. The Cluny is an incredible trip back into not only the Middle Ages, but also the Roman era. It's buit over a Roman bath, and you can see the stones in several of these pictures. Here's a description of the museum. You enter from the street into a medieval courtyard with an old well, and sundial, and of course the beautiful building on three sides. It's not very big, but it's one of the most impressive things to see in Paris, I think.
The one on the right shows the exterior of the museum seen through one of the upstairs windows. The scallop shell (lower corners of the window and also on the outside of the building) is a theme carried throughout. The scallop was brought back by pilgrims visiting Santiago de Compostela in Spain - a very popular pilgrimage church.
The two pictures on the left show medieval sculpture agaist Roman walls inside the museum. The leftmost photo is of the Kings of Judah, torn down from Notre Dame during the Revolution because the Revolutionaries thought they were kings of France. There's an interesting story about their rescue and their rediscovery in 1997, which you can read via the "this page" link above. On the right (right photo, and the furthest statue on the right) is St. James (Jacques in French). If you click to enlarge it, you can see the scallop shell on the bag he carries. The nearby Rue St. Jacques was named for him, and it's his church in Spain (Santiago de Compostela) that was visited by the pilgrims, who took the ancient road, Rue St. Jacques, out of Paris on their way to Spain.
On the left, a capital from a medieval pillar. In the center is a panel of stained glass. We didn't see a description on the wall, but the red was so striking Marco had to try to get the image. It came out well on the slide - it's deep blood red - but it didn't scan true to color. On the right, weapons and armor. If we'd known the interior shots would come out this well, we would have taken more. Most of the museum was quite dark in order to preserve the color in the artifacts. Of course, it provided a nice atmosphere as well.
The private chapel on the upper floor consisted of one small room - but it was magnificent. Most of the pictures we took were of the awesome ceiling with its stone vaulting and flamboyant gothic design worked in between the ribs. I think the floor was of black and white tile or stone, and there was one small window.
Here are more pictures of the ceiling. In the middle picture you can see pieces of the frieze that encircled the room. The picture on the right shows a locked enclosure at the head of a spiral stair. I believe this was the abbot's private entrance to the chapel. The small white areas at the bottom are light coming through leaded glass in the stairwell.
This is one of the rooms of the Roman bath on which the medieval building stands. Unfortunately the focus isn't good, so I made the enlargement smaller than most. There were a lot of folding chairs here below the level of the other rooms, so we sat for awhile and rested. Ancient stones and vaulted chambers feel so peaceful, and we'd left the crowded tours behind us for the moment. In a tunnel off to one side were tombs of various Knights Templar and others who had been connected with the abbey. Excavations are still going on, and power cords led into the darkness behind locked gates. When we came out it was drizzling, which made the cozy atmosphere of this beautiful museum that much better.
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All photos are © Copyright Sheryl Todd and Marco Herranz.
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