Sunday, July 21, 2019

inSPIREd Sunday

Sally and Beth host inSPIREd Sunday!

April 2019 - Paris France

We had seen this from Place de la Concorde and thought it was the Pantheon!


Turns out it was a church and we visited it the next day.

The Eglise de la Madeleine is situated between Place de la Concorde and the Palais Garnier opera house, in Haussmannian Paris. Its construction started in 1764 and finished in 1842.

Its appearance is atypical of that of a religious building, in the form of a Greek temple without any crosses or bell-towers. 

Napoleon wanted it to be a pantheon (see, we weren't crazy!)in honor of his armies.
Together with the Arc de Triomphe (1806–08) and the Vendôme Column, the Madeleine is one of the monuments with which Napoleon sought to turn Paris into an imperial capital. Built in the form of a Roman temple surrounded by a Corinthian colonnade, the Madeleine reflects the taste for Classical art and architecture that predominated in France during the Empire phase of the Neoclassical movement.


In 1816 the Madeleine was made a church by the restored Bourbon regime. Its interior, completed 1828–42 under the supervision of Jean-Jacques Huvé, was modeled on the Roman baths.


The church's bronze doors bear reliefs representing the Ten Commandments.




Inside, the church has a single nave with three domes over wide arched bays, lavishly gilded in a decor inspired as much by Roman baths as by Renaissance artists. At the rear of the church, above the high altar, stands a statue by Charles Marochetti depicting St Mary Magdalene being lifted up by angels which evokes the tradition concerning ecstasy which she entered in her daily prayer while in seclusion. The half-dome above the altar is frescoed by Jules-Claude Ziegler, entitled The History of Christianity, showing the key figures in the Christian religion with — a sign of its Second Empire date — Napoleon occupying centre stage.














France paid an emotional farewell December 2018 to Johnny Hallyday -- the singer who taught the country how to rock -- in a highly theatrical "people's tribute" that brought Paris to a standstill. His funeral service was in La Madeleine and this was on a table.




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