It looks like Norte Dame De Paris is buring to the ground.

On the drive to work this morning, I heard on the radio that "two French businessmen pledged a total of $320 million" for the coming cleanup and restoration fund.

This I thought was pretty cool, since you would normally think that "French businessmen" would pledge in Euros. :D
 
I have created a word-salad dyslexi-thread.
 
I saw this post on one of my medieval history groups. She has a point, Notre Dame will rise again because she simply is a creature of movement and time.


Sara L. Uckleman:

While what has happened to Notre Dame today has shocked me and moved me to tears more than once over the course of the evening, I'm finding that my background and training as a medievalist means I'm, overall, finding it a lot less devastating than many people.

Why?

Because I know how churches live. They are not static monuments to the past. They are built, they get burned, they are rebuilt, they are extended, they get ransacked, they get rebuilt, they collapse because they were not built well, they get rebuilt, they get extended, they get renovated, they get bombed, they get rebuilt. It is the continuous presence, not the original structure, that matters.

The spire that fell, that beautiful iconic spire? Not even 200 years old. A new spire can be built, the next stage in the evolution of the cathedral.

The rose windows? Reproductions of the originals. We can reproduce them again.

Notre Dame is one of the best documented cathedrals in the world. We have the knowledge we need to rebuild it.

But more than that: We have the skill. There may not be as many ecclesiastical stone masons nowadays as there were in the height of the Middle Ages, but there are still plenty, and I bet masons from all over Europe, if not further, will be standing ready to contribute to rebuilding. Same with glaziers, carpenters, etc.

Precious artworks and relics may have been lost. There is report of one fireman seriously injured, but so far, from what I've read, no one else, and no deaths.

This isn't the first time Notre Dame has burned. I'm dead certain it won't be the last.
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If I remember correctly a lot of the stained glass is actually 19th century. La Révolution was unkind to many churches and monasteries throughout France. As a medievalist I never studied ND Paris. It was for those who studied nineteenth century ideas of what medieval churches should be. Better to visit the western facade of Chartres for stained glass, sculpture and architecture of the 12th c., or the nearby Sainte Chapelle. Not trying to sound snobby, but ND wasn’t authentic and that’s why medievalists aren’t too upset.

Although somewhere in France there are a few dreaming big right now about how they could bring it back to a more correct restoration, I am sure....
 
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