Photo : Gennadii Saus i Segura / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Laon
The cathedral of Notre-Dame de Laon, built between about 1155 and 1235, is one of the first great Gothic buildings in France. It stands on the hill that overlooks the town. Its plan is about 110 metres long, the nave vault rises to 24 metres, and its east end is flat, an arrangement that recalls English cathedrals. The nave elevation has four levels, with galleries and tribunes.
The west façade opens through three sculpted portals, devoted notably to the Nativity, the Last Judgement and the Coronation of the Virgin. Seven towers were planned, but only five were built; a lantern tower marks the crossing of the transept. Sixteen stone oxen, life-size, adorn the façade towers: according to legend, a miraculous white ox came to help haul the stones up the hill. The building has been a listed historic monument since 1840.
