Saint-Lazare cathedral of Autun

The cathedral Saint- Lazare of Autun was built at the 12th century, and was devoted like Cathédrale at the end of this century, to replace the cathedral Saint-Nazaire.

History

A first cathedral was built in Autun as from the 5th century, devoted more tardily to Saint Nazaire (there remains a vault of the 14th century about it). The Saint-Lazare cathedral was projected by Etienne de Bagé in order to preserve the relics of the aforesaid saint, hitherto located in the first building.

Started towards 1120, it was completed in 1146, the porch being completed a few years later. It is built on the model of abbey of Paray-le-Monial. The Gothic vault had to replace a ceiling of wood at the 13th century, little time after its dedication like cathedral, since one added propping up at that time. An arrow was built at the 16th century by the cardinal Rolin (the son of the chancellor Rolin, above the transept crossing , in the place of a Romance bell-tower destroyed by the lightning. It reaches 80 m in height. The side gate and its tympanum were destroyed in 1766 and the stones were employed again for the construction of the close houses. Famous the Eve was thus included in a wall before being redécouverte. The same year, the famous tympanum of the Last Judgment was covered with plaster, the canons of then judging it of bad taste. It was redécouvert only in 1837 and restored. The head of Christ, having been divided during the first plastering and having been preserved at the Rolin museum at side, was positioned back only in 1948.

Description

The tympanum

It is about the most remarkable element of the cathedral. Exceptionally, one knows the name of the sculptor who was the author at least last Judgment: it is about Gislebert, which signs of its name to the feet of Christ ( Gyslebertus hoc fecit ).

One can break up it into a central scene representing Christ in Majesty, surmounting a lintel and surrounded by two arcades, the external one including/understanding many figurative medallions comprising of the representations of the zodiacaux signs, and work in the various months of the year. The whole rests on columns with chapitaux historiés.

The central scene represents a last Jugement, with Christ in Mandorle. It has several traditional elements of this subject:

resurrection of deaths, of which some hide already the face, others carry the emblems of the pilgrim (Scallop);
the insane virgin with the centres bitten by the snakes, representing the Lust;
an immense Christ dominating the scene;
on its line, Saint Pierre makes enter the right ones to the Paradise; above, a great place is made with the Virgin Mary interceding;
with the left of Christ, takes place the weighing of the hearts; as usual in this kind of scenes, the Devil cheating while pressing on the balance, but exceptionally the Archangel Saint-Michel cheating him also in favor of the human ones. The hell occupies a reduced place.

There is thus an optimistic representation of the last Judgment, in coherence with the prosperous time of his realization.

The Trumeau is quite posterior since it dates from the 19th century and represents Saint Lazare and its two sisters.

Interior

The central and side naves are in broken vault, not counterbalanced, at the origin by propping up, making the unit rather unstable. The latter were added at the 13th century.

The chorus and remade with

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