Sainte-Chapelle

So Sainte-Chapelle, or the Holy Chapel, was built by Louis IX to house relics of Christ's passion. He decided that this would be a good idea after he got ahold of the Crown of Thorns. Which, quite honestly, if you could guarantee me that this was the real thing and I have no idea how you would do this scientifically, would be something that I would go see. And, to a people without the word science to hide behind, this Crown of Thorns obtained by Louis Number Nine was pretty much the... (really, if you lived my head you would appreciate the irony of the word I was going to put there) ... coolest thing ever. Not even the coolest thing since sliced bread, because they hadn't sliced bread yet.

But the Crown of Thorns is currently housed in Notre-Dame, just down the road on the Isle de la Cite in Paris, and so you don't really hear about that all that much. What you do hear about though, is the stained glass.

There's actually quite a lot of it there.

It's a jewel of Gothic architecture, according to most. Each of the panels of stained glass tells a different set of stories from the Bible. You've got Genesis and then Exodus and some Moses

You can tell it's Moses because he's got horns. Also, did I tell you my Biblical Hebrew professor named his son Moshe? Presh. 

 and then Numbers, not the most enthralling of the books of the Bible, Deuteronomy, Judges, Kings, etc, and then on to the New Testament with scenes from the Gospel and a Passion window right behind the altar. We run back to the old testament down the sides until you end up at the story of the discovery of the relics near the exit. There's a big rose window, too, and that's got Revelation. Here, you can look around for yourself in a virtual tour. I love those things.

Stained glass is actually pretty cool. I used to think it was a lot cooler than it is because of this urban legend that the stained glass in very old churches sunk to the bottom of the frames, leaving gaps at the tops and proving that glass was actually a liquid. I would always get this story confused with Non-Newtonian fluids like silly putty. This is false, it's actually just an attribute of the way the glass was made, but glass itself is pretty interesting, as far as amorphous solids go. But I digress. Glass is made from silica and the glass is colored by mixing in different metallic oxides. According to the guide in Sainte-Chapelle that I sat and read as I tried not to cry after I realized that a sizable chunk of my cash was missing (stillangryatthelittlethiefeventhoughIknowIshouldn'tbe andit'smyownfaultbutstillJERKSforabusingthedeafand dumbtohaveanopportunitytotakemymoneyaaaaaaahhhhhhh), there's only six colors that can be made- red, blue, green, yellow and purple. But this site tells me differently and gives a good list. So I don't know. But I do know that they painted glass in the Renaissance. Cheaters. It's so much more complex to design and cut the pieces of colored glass and glue them together with lead.

So there you go. Now you know a bit more about stained glass and why I would have to extensively prepare talks if I was a teacher. Because I ramble. And get distracted. And don't have much narrative cohesion.

Yay science and religion!

And in classic style, here's a picture of a statue of Mary, her hair being pulled by Jesus and standing on a human lizard thing.