NOTRE-DAME CATHEDRAL OF LAUSANNE

Inaugurated in 1275, in the presence of Pope Gregory X and Emperor Rudolf of Habsburg, the Gothic cathedral was built on the hill of the old medieval city. It was the third church to be built on this site. From the cathedral, admire the superb view of Lausanne and the lake below.

As you walk towards the entrance from the Café de l'Evêché, you will see, just past the tinted glass, the traces of a door (stone arch) around a current window. This is an old passageway, as the cathedral was open at the time and horse-drawn carriages passed through it.

At the beginning of the ^16th century, the bishop Aymon de Montfalcon had this passageway blocked up and a new entrance made. The one you can see now is a copy because, over time, the molasse statues were damaged (some of them are exposed inside and you will see their deterioration) and were replaced by famous public figures such as the French architect Viollet-le-Duc, who participated in the restoration of the cathedral and eventually settled in Lausanne. At the time, this entrance did not have a door and one could see the statue of the Virgin, surrounded by King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, whose head was cut off at the time of the Reformation.

Indeed , in 1536, with the arrival of the Bernese and the adoption of the Reformation, the cathedral was dedicated to Protestant worship. Some statues disappeared and the painted decorations were covered with a grey paint, which allowed to preserve very beautiful polychromies, brought to light at the beginning of the ^20th century and protected by a tinted glass since 2007.

Finally, the rose window of 9 m in diameter, visible on the south gable of the transept, is among the masterpieces of European artistic heritage. The stained glass windows express the medieval vision of the world by proposing, around the figure of God the creator, the various themes of the earth and the sea, air and fire, the seasons and the months of the year, the signs of the zodiac and the monsters at the ends of the universe...

The new organs, inaugurated in 2003, form a unique instrument in the world by their conception (thanks to the American manufacturer Fisk and the Italian designer Giugiaro), their musical characteristics (French classical and symphonic styles, German baroque and romantic styles) and by their dimensions (nearly 7,000 pipes, 40 tons, 150,000 hours of work to build them).