tellement exquises qu'il est dfficile d'en rencontrer de plus belles dans toute k. France. ...... af'ms gueules a lafasce d'argent, noted by Divaeus in 1610 "in choro begi- ...... 5], dessin que nous avons eu le bonheur de trouver dans un anclen.
Comit6 international d'Histoire de l,Art Comit6 frangais d'histoire de l,Art XXVIIe congrts international d'histoire de l,Art Strasbourg 1-7 septembre 1989 Actes
L'Art et les r6volutions Technique, structure et
TABLE RONDE style de l'architecture gothique Responsable Angiola Maria Romanini
Imprim6 avec le concours du Centre national des Lettres, du Centre national de la Recherche Scientifique, de la Direction des Mus6es de France
soci6t6 Alsacienne pour le D6veloppement de I'Histoire de l,Art Strasbourg 1992
XVI Heraldqf and Patronage in the Lost Windows of Saint-Nicaise de Reims tfHE
Benedictine abbey-church of Saint-Nicaise de Reims - the nave I and remarkable fagade by the architect Hugues Libergier (d. 1263) and the rayonnant chevet by Robert de Coucy (d. 1311) - is lauded by current scholars as one of the most significant designs of French Gothic architecture.l This fame is the more impressive since it is founded on the secondary evidence of old prints and drawings, with a few texts, the church having been sold and methodical|y ruzed berween 1799 and 1819. That stained glassunquestionably played an important role in the effect of Saint-Nicaise is clear from Dom Guillaume Marlot's statement of 7660:' Quant aux uitres qui achbuentla beautdde cettesomptueusedglise,ellessont tellement exquisesqu'il est dfficile d'en rencontrer de plus bellesdans toute k France.
'The basicstudy is now MaryseBideaultand ClaudineLautier,"Saint-Nicaise de Reims, chronologieet nouvellesremarquessur I'architecture,"Bulletin monumental, of the12thand l3th C)OOCV(L977)p.295-330; alsoJeanBony,FrenchGothicArchitecture (Berkeley: 1983)p. 381-85;RobertBranner, Centuries, StLouisandtheCourtStylein Gothic Architecture, London,1965,pp. 28-37,77, 82-83, 105-8. My work on the stained glass of Saint-Nicaise was aided by an NEH Thavel-toCollections grant (1987) and a membership in the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton (fall 1988); thanks also to Roger Laslier, conservateur of the Bibliothdque municipale de Reims. ' Dom Guillaume Marlot, Histoire de la uille, citi et uniuersitd de Reims, Reims, 1846,III, p.334.
Marlott
text, written 1660-63 in French, remained in manuscript until 1846.To
avoid the criticism of his fellow Benedictines he translated into Latin and published a shortened version: Metropolis rernensis historia, 2 vols. Reims, 1666. References below are to Histoire unless otherwise noted.
HERALDRYAND PAIRONAGE
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