Thirteenth-Century Modifications in the West Portals of Bourges Cathedral

Abstract

THE FACADE of Bourges cathedral was planned ca. Izz81230 (Fig. I).1 It belongs to a second campaign of construction which lasted from ca. 1225 to 1255 and included the nave.2 The faSade was not finished when the cathedral was consecrated in 1324. The thirteenth-century rose window was transformed and completed in the late fourteenth century.3 At the end of the fifteenth century, the north tower still had not been erected to the same height as the south tower. A campaign to conclude the work on its upper parts resulted in its collapse in I5o6 because the new masonry proved to be too heavy for the foundations.4 For the new north tower, completed in I542,5 everything was rebuilt, including its portal. The intermediary portal next to it, the Virgin Portal, was almost completely remade at the same time. Some of the original thirteenth-century sculpture was reused in its tympanum, but except for this, the two northernmost portals cannot be included in a discussion of the thirteenth-century facade. Further troubles befell the portals in I56z when the Huguenots attacked them and did a great deal of damage by pulling down the jamb statues and smashing many of the dado reliefs with hammers.6 A major program of sculpture restoration in the nineteenth century