Après l’incendie. Notre-Dame de Paris : bilan, réflexions, perspectives

Abstract

The conflagration on 15 April 2019 was the worst catastrophe suffered by the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris since its construction in the twelfth century. Because of the immense fame of the monument, the emotion shook the planet. Commentaries and rumors proliferated, sometimes to the detriment of properly verified information, and all this well before the results of the police inquest into the causes, the extent of the damage, and the state of the monument were rendered public, as well as the place of the cathedral in the history of Gothic art and the range of solutions possible for the replacement of the timberwork, etc. It has been deemed essential that for the readers of the Bulletin monumental a judicious state of the question be given concerning what was destroyed by the fire, the current state of the masonry, and the perspectives and challenges that face both those responsible for the reconstruction and scholars who will deal with the cathedral in the future.