The Most Impressive Church in Paris - Manuel Bravo Reaction

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Welcome back everyone. Hope you're doing amazing. Manuel Bravo has the most impressive church in Paris and it says not Notredam.

[00:00:09]Not the Notredam.

[00:00:11]Well, what may it be? Let's find out.

[00:00:16]Gothic architecture, distinguished by its use of pointed arches, ribbed vaults, and flying buttresses, flourished in France in the 13th century in a period of architecture known as high Gothic.

[00:00:30]>> Okay. High Gothic >> where the construction of cathedrals reached an exceptional level of refinement and height.

[00:00:37]>> Yeah, that's impressive, isn't it?

[00:00:40]Around 12:30, there was a reaction against the huge scale of high Gothic cathedrals and architects began to use the same structural approach on smaller scaled buildings which brought a new sense of intimacy and an increased complexity of detail now intended to be appreciated at close quarters. This >> okay rayon gothic.

[00:01:04]>> This new style was later known as rayon gothic >> rayonet. The word reo is French for radiant and this name is due to the rays of light that radiate through the windows.

[00:01:16]>> Okay.

[00:01:18]>> The nature of the style made it ideal for palace chapels of which the most spe >> it's like a castle >> example is a son chappelle in Paris.

[00:01:28]>> San Chappelle >> built between 1242 and 1248. The son chapel was commissioned by King Louis the 9inth to house the relics of the passion which he had acquired from the emperor of Constantinople.

[00:01:44]>> That's very interesting actually. Okay.

[00:01:47]So this makes it probably the most important church in Paris if not the second most.

[00:01:53]>> Among them the crown of thorns and a fragment of the true cross.

[00:01:57]>> That's that's quite impressive if true or you never know. You never know. These relics cost him twice as much as the construction of the building and he brought them to France in 1238.

[00:02:12]The illacet the heart of the city of Paris since antiquity was dominated by NRAAM Cathedral on the east and on the west by the pale deacet the royal residence of the kings of France in the middle.

[00:02:26]>> That's right. Yeah. this island island island isle longest been like the part of medieval Paris and then of course it grew after that and this became more of a you know a historic place >> making the island the seat of political and religious power the chapel >> I wish we had we were looking at the map of what it looked like between like 700 to to 1,000 to 1200 >> was built attached to the pale de la as a symbol of the king's piety and authority.

[00:03:00]So, as you approach the building, standing within a small courtyard inside the palace, you'll notice its structure is slightly different than the larger cathedrals. In Gothic cathedrals, you have flying buttresses.

[00:03:11]>> These big old arches that come off the, you know, >> hold the structure of the arches.

[00:03:18]>> These are, you know, huge around, you know, a lot of cathedrals. London, Paris, Constantinople, so forth.

[00:03:28]>> But because this building is so small, flying buttresses would prevent light from passing through the windows. And the main objective of Gothic >> Wow, that stained glass window is just one of the most impressive I've ever seen right there.

[00:03:46]>> Architecture is to get as much light as possible inside the building. So in order to be able to have such small buttresses that could support the thrust of the vaults, the architect of the son chappelle designed a system of internal iron rods that encircle the building, linking the buttresses horizontally.

[00:04:11]These rods are concealed in the masonry and pass across the windows, also serving as the framework that supports the glass.

[00:04:20]Thanks to this ingenious dematerialization of the structure, >> it's very stout, you know, >> and to the wondrous properties of medieval stained glass, the interior of the sun chappelle has no equal as the chapel is flooded with colorful rays of light that enrich the spiritual and divine experience of entering the chapel.

[00:04:45]The arrangement of the pinnacles and other elements such as the ballastrate, the gargoyles, and the exterior tracery mimic the shape of a requery reflecting the building's purpose. But they also mimic the shape of a medieval crown with its jewels and ornaments.

[00:05:01]This >> resemblance to a crown could be interpreted as a symbolic homage to the relic it was built to enshrine.

[00:05:10]Yeah, even with those like clover looking uh gaps between uh what do you call it? The the cute arches right there feel like a place where you would put a jewel.

[00:05:24]>> Reinforcing its spiritual and sacred significance, making the total height of the building over 75 m. The spire is built of cedar wood and >> really I would not expect that. covered with lead for weather resistance.

[00:05:41]>> Oh wow. I wonder how that wood's doing.

[00:05:46]>> Statues of saints, gargoyles, and ornate carvings highlight the craftsmanship and the attention to detail.

[00:05:53]>> When did gargoyles become common place?

[00:05:55]Is that Gothic just in general?

[00:06:04]The spire not only accentuates the verticality of the building, making it visible from the distance, but also serves as a symbolic element that stretches towards the heavens.

[00:06:27]The San Chapelle has two levels.

[00:06:30]In the ground floor, there is a room with a low ceiling. There was a chapel for the servants of the royal palace.

[00:06:36]While the spacious upper chapel was used by the royal family and the court, the ground.

[00:06:43]>> So there's a classism divide even in this >> chapel is accessed from the courtyard and the upper chapel is accessed from the palace.

[00:06:55]From the main facade, you can appreciate the double height of the upper chapel.

[00:07:03]The rose window of the son chappelle was built in the 15th century using a later style of Gothic architecture known as flamboyan, which is French for flaming.

[00:07:14]And >> so that's very similar to like the Notradam view, right? It >> was called that because you can see how the stone tracery has curves forming flamelike shapes.

[00:07:25]Other elements from the exterior are also from the 15th century such as a two small spire on top of the two towers on each side of the main facade. Both decorated with flur deiss beneath sculpted crowns of thorns.

[00:07:42]As you enter the grand chapel, you'll notice the polychromia on the interior.

[00:07:46]Usually gothic architecture is not colored, but the walls, columns, and tra >> My goodness, this looks beautiful.

[00:07:53]almost looks like the interior of a mosque, you know, with like those columns and arches. I think the one at Cordoba we looked at that was similar to this. I'm not sure if that was the name of it, but one of the ones in Spain >> of the Son Chappelle are completely painted with bright colors such as gold, red, and green. And the vaults are painted of royal blue with flu deiss.

[00:08:20]>> This is France.

[00:08:23]The columns inside alternate between red and blue and each represent the two royal families from which the king Louis the 9inth descended. The blue columns with the flur deiss represent the capian dynasty through his father and the red columns with a golden castle represent the kingdom of Castile in Spain through his mother.

[00:08:44]>> Interesting.

[00:08:51]And at the end of the chapel in the center, you'll see a statue of Louis the 9th >> with no hands >> and also as King St. Louis.

[00:09:02]>> What happened to his hands?

[00:09:04]>> This chapel is very compact as he has columns in the middle of the space and the ceilings are low giving a cave-like effect thanks to how close you can see the vaults.

[00:09:13]>> I wonder how the sound protrudes out because of all these different, you know, faces.

[00:09:21]As I said, originally you would have entered each chapel through the central portal on each floor. But the way you access the upper chapel now as you visit the son chappelle is through the spiral staircases on the sides after visiting the ground floor chapel. So after being compacted in the lower chapel and then compacted even more as you climb up the narrow stairs, you finally get to the upper chapel that gives you an amazing expansion of light and space.

[00:09:58]Because of the structure conformed of thin buttresses, there are almost no walls inside. The whole space is contained by 670 square meters of stained glass.

[00:10:09]>> My gosh, that's just ethereal.

[00:10:18]Most of the glass panels are original and they depict 1,113 scenes from the Bible.

[00:10:25]>> That's insane, man. The the the craftsmanship to to construct this.

[00:10:33]>> The three central windows of the apps represent scenes of the life of Jesus taken from the New Testament.

[00:10:46]All the windows on the north and south sides, except for the last one on the south corner, represents scenes from the Old Testament, such as the creation or scenes from the life of Moses.

[00:10:58]The window on the corner depicts the history of the relics that were held in the chapel, presenting King Louis the 9th as the legitimate successor of the kings of Israel.

[00:11:08]>> Interesting. So they tie, of course they have to do that to kind of like tie the legitimacy of the divine right of kings.

[00:11:17]>> And finally the rose window being oriented towards the west.

[00:11:22]>> Are these scenes too?

[00:11:24]>> Depicts the book of revelation.

[00:11:27]>> Wow.

[00:11:28]>> Symbolizing the end of times.

[00:11:35]>> Really crazy colors, man. Beautiful.

[00:11:47]The art, the most fascinating thing about the scenes depicted in the windows is that although they are biblical scenes from antiquity, the characters are depicted as medieval people.

[00:12:05]>> Yeah, you can tell too. So it it feels like almost as it's always been a thing to kind of like think that you live in the end times. It's like Jesus is coming back. You know, that's always been a thing. Always. I wonder if that's kind of like the mindset here is, you know, revelation could be tomorrow.

[00:12:26]>> Wearing medieval clothes and armor and walking in medieval towns surrounded by medieval >> I would not even notice that >> castles.

[00:12:35]>> Wow. kings from antiquity wearing medieval crowns and ancient priests wearing medieval clothes.

[00:12:44]These biblical scenes are presented through a medieval lens because artists from the middle ages could only draw upon their contemporary concept of king and architecture.

[00:12:56]Good >> point.

[00:13:06]The plan of the chapel has 33 m in length and 10 12 m in width.

[00:13:13]And the vaults reach a height of 20 and 1/2 m. A small space for a Gothic building, yet it retains that sense of verticality characteristic of Gothic architecture.

[00:13:27]The bottom of the walls have a place for the chord members to sit. And in the third traverse of the chapel, there's a niche carved in each side of the walls.

[00:13:36]Each decorated with archivals and sculpture angels. And >> like there's so much detail, it's almost maximalist painted. These spaces were for the king and queen to see during ceremonies.

[00:14:00]At the end of the chapel lies the altar which once held the 22 relics that King Louis the 9inth had acquired.

[00:14:08]>> Where are those today? The Gothic altar is adorned with gilded elements and intricate carvings, and it serves as a focal point of the chapel's interior, drawing the eye upwards towards the stained glass windows and the vated ceiling.

[00:14:28]You can see that the vaults from the upper chapel are also painted blue. But instead of having painted flis like the lower chapel, they have golden stars >> almost like the heavens. Right?

[00:14:40]>> This distinction in decoration visually represents the medieval belief in the divine right of kings where the monarchy is seen as ruling under divine authority.

[00:14:52]The floor deis in the lower chapel symbolize the monarchy's protection over his subjects while the starry ceiling in the upper chapel symbolizes the heavens >> emphasizing the royal family's proximity to God.

[00:15:06]>> Makes sense.

[00:15:17]Just outside the chapel in the top level, you can see the main portal through which the royal family and its court would access the chapel back in the middle ages. And of course, even on the outside, beautiful.

[00:15:32]>> You can see the figure of Christ in the center of the tempenum. Next to him are two angels with the two main relics that the chapel held, the crown of thorns and the cross. And on the sides are Virgin Mary and John the Baptist. Below the lintil shows Saw Michelle weighing the souls of the dead. Those sent to heaven on the left and the damned on the right.

[00:15:56]>> Golly, the contrast.

[00:16:02]Whoever built this knew exactly what they were doing.

[00:16:06]>> On the lower walls, you see panels depicting biblical scenes. On the left, you have the creation.

[00:16:14]And on the right, Noah's ark.

[00:16:18]Most of the portal was destroyed during the French Revolution and it was remade by a French sculptor in the 19th century.

[00:16:26]>> Several parts.

[00:16:27]>> Yeah. A lot of churches I mean it was very secular time during the revolution.

[00:16:31]So that makes sense.

[00:16:32]>> Of the son Chappelle were damaged during the revolution. And in the 1840s scholars, archaeologists and architects restored the chapel to its medieval state.

[00:16:43]being as >> I would think that's what happened to the relics. They were probably destroyed or something. Then >> faithful as possible with the original drawings and descriptions that had survived. The most famous of these architects was Eugene Emanuel Vuduk who after working on the son chappelle dedicated his life to restore Gothic architecture most notably the cathedral of NRAAM.

[00:17:07]>> Oh really makes sense. In the middle ages, Jean Jean, a French writer, described the experience of entering the Son Chapel, which gives us a sense of what medieval people thought when entering these impressive Gothic churches, but also that most beautiful of chapels, the Chapel of the King, most fittingly situated underneath the walls of the royal palace, is graced with the most firm and indissolible structure of the most solid of The stones, the most select colors of paints, the precious gilding of the images, the decorous transparency of the glowing glass all around, the most beautiful ornaments of the altars, the wonderful virtues of the sanctuaries, the design of the requaries externally.

[00:18:03]Even golly the structure even on scale that looks I'm just blown away on these architectural videos always because of the the detail in some of these uh smaller perspectives >> adorned with gleaming gems and so great exaggeration of beauty is generously given to that house of prayer that upon entering it as if carried out >> and imagine like in its heyi day like right after it was built, how much it gleamed. Probably >> up to heaven, one would not without reason think has entered one of the most precious chambers of paradise.

[00:18:44]>> Yeah.

[00:18:46]Like there would be no fading of any of these colors anywhere. The walls, the columns, the ceiling.

[00:19:03]Well, I hope you learned and enjoyed. Please like this video. As always, Manuel Bravo, like the I'm so glad we do these videos just because I would have never guessed that there is a Magnificico church cathedral right alongside Notraam on the same place with even more storied history in some regard.

[00:19:37]Insane, man. Let me know if you ever been there. Also, let me know um what architectural wonder we should look at next.

[00:19:48]Appreciate you guys as always. Until next time, peace out.