Saint-Étienne Cathedral, Auxerre (Cathédrale Saint-Étienne d’Auxerre)

What you will see

Start outside with the west portals, carved in the 13th century with the Last Judgement, the life of John the Baptist and scenes of the Creation. Inside, walk round the ambulatory to see its 13th-century stained glass, then look up at the soaring choir. Downstairs, the crypt holds the fresco of Christ on a white horse, surrounded by four angels on horseback. The treasury shows illuminated manuscripts, ivories and enamelled reliquaries from Limoges.

History

Several cathedrals stood here before the present one. After a fire in 1023, a Romanesque cathedral was built and consecrated in 1057, and its crypt still survives. Bishop Guillaume de Seignelay began the Gothic cathedral in 1215. The choir was structurally complete by 1235, and the ambulatory windows were glazed by about 1250. Work on the nave and façade then went on slowly for almost three centuries.

The north tower was only finished in the 1540s, and the south tower was never built. In 1567 Protestant troops sacked Auxerre and damaged the cathedral, and the Revolution turned it into a Temple of Reason. The cathedral was listed as a historic monument in 1840, and Viollet-le-Duc restored the crypt from 1844 to 1848. In 1870 Prussian cannonballs shattered one of the 13th-century windows.