<p style="text-align: left;"><img class="size-full wp-image-792 aligncenter" src="http://jeanatacc.com/2011/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/220px-Saint-Denis_-_Basilique_-2.jpg" alt="center of the bacilica " width="220" height="298" />


Rebuilt and enlarged approximately four times from the 7th through 13th centuries, the Abbey church of Saint-Denis realized its unique status as pioneer in Gothic architecture under the innovative guidance of abbot Suger (1122-1151). These renovations of the obbey church between 1137-1144, form one of the most important architectures of the Middle Ages in providing a first-hand look at the transition from the Late Romanesque to Gothic architecture in France. Above the Romanesque crypt with its massive walls and semi-circular arches supported by low, thick columns, the new choir built under Suger's direction formed a double ambulatory with pointed arches and ribbed vaulting. This lighter, skeletal design permitted increased elevation and freed the walls from a primary load-bearing capacity, allowing extensive use of stained glass windows in a higher, more spacious, and light-filled interior. Sculptures on the church portals, meanwhile, developed into a level of figurative sophistication not seen since Late Antiquity. Art historians all agree that the church of St. Denis in France was the first place were gothic architecture was born. The basilica of ST. Denis became popular for different reasons one of the most important was the story of the cathedral and how it was build, according to the 9th century Carolingian legend, ST. Denis the first bishop of  Lutenia  (roman Paris ) was beheaded around AD 250 by Roman soldiers in Montmartre, but then walked away with his severed head in his hands beyond the center of Paris before dying. The legend said he was buried in a clandestine ceremony after his martyrdom near the roman town of Catalacus about 11 km north of Paris. In about A.D 475, ST. Denis was reburied in a Gallo-roman cemetery at the eventual site of the monastery named after his name. ST. Genevieve, patron of ST. Denis constructed the first church    in here to commemorate his name whose burial site begun to attract many pilgrims. The church of  ST. DENIS (France) should be preserved not just because of the incredible history inside its walls and structures, but because it was the burial place of French loyalty and one of the first churches that was created in gothic style.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">The church    of ST. Denis has been recognized for many different reasons, amount the  most important was that ST. Denis church was one of the  first church that had the gothic structure. In fact, While Gothic cathedrals followed Saint-Denis in adopting a new look, their floor plan the Latin cross remained basically the same as that of the Romanesque church   .
In contrast to the Romanesque church   , with its well-defined cubic volumes and its simple geometric harmonies, the Gothic cathedral was an intricate web of stone, a dynamic network of open and closed spaces that evoked a sense of unbounded extension. Learned churchmen might glean from these images a profound symbolic message, while less educated Christians might see in them a history of their faith and a mirror of daily experience. Science and Technology 1122 Abbot Suger combines pointed arches and rib vaults in remodeling the abbey church of Saint-Denis. This trend accompanied a proliferation of religious imagery and architectural detail that turned some Late Gothic church facades into encyclopedias in stone. Increasingly, images of Mary and depictions of her life came to adorn church portals, stained glass windows, altarpieces, and illuminated manuscripts. Stained Glass Stained glass was to the Gothic cathedral what mosaics were to the Early Christian church: a source of religious edification, a medium of divine light, and a delight to the eye. Legend had it that Abbot Suger, the first churchman to exploit the aesthetic potential of stained glass, produced blue glass by grinding up sapphires story that, although untrue, reflects the popular equation of precious gems with sacred glass. Drawing on this mystical bond between Jesus and light, Suger identified the lux nova (“new light”) of the Gothic church as the symbolic equivalent of God and the windows as mediators of God's love. But for Suger, light especially as it passed through the stained glass windows of the church also signified the sublime knowledge that accompanied the progressive purification of the ascending human spirit, sustained his belief that contemplation of the “many-colored gems” of church glass could transport the Christian from “the slime of this earth” to “the purity of heaven. The light symbolism that Suger embraced was as distinctive to medieval sermons and treatises as it was to the everyday liturgy of the church. Modern critics have recognized the Gothic style as a sophisticated and majestic expression of the age of faith. But, reflecting a shift of intellectual life from the monastery to the town, the Gothic cathedral was also the administrative seat (cathedra) of a bishop, the site of ecclesiastical authority, and an educational center fount of theological doctrine and divine precept. The Gothic cathedral, was large enough to hold the entire population of a town, (was the municipal center of gravity.) meaning that it was the center of attraction.
The church of ST.DENIS became immensely famous for the history of the loyal French loyalty as well as the way they were preserved. For instance, the surviving sculptural fragments include three heads in the Musée national du Moyen Age (former Musée de Cluny) as well as several original heads of apostles and kings from the Last Judgment. These Old Testament figures not only represented early protagonists of Christendom, but also alluded to the divine right of the French rulers, following in the succession of biblical kings. For example, the head of a queen from the central portal, possibly the Queen of Sheba, shares stylistic parallels with a sculpture of Eve's head at Autun Cathedral in Burgundy, attributed to the sculptor Giselbertus. Both share the same deep boring of their pupils, and 'worm-like' strands of hair, and can thus be dated to around 1135-1140. In contrast, the jamb figures of the north portal (ca. 1130-1135) resemble those found at the St. Etienne Cathedral in Toulouse, which have a similar posture with crossed legs, as well as decorative jeweled borders.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Fragments of two conjoined heads of the apostles and the two elders, now at the Louvre, reveal the Gothic concern for sculptural volume in the heavy treatment of the flesh and the typical feature of thick rimmed eyes. This portal also contains the original 12th century carvings of the Dove and the Lamb, as well as God and Christ.
The north doorway now contains a 19th century relief of the Martyrdom of St. Denis as well as a statue of the Virgin on the trumeau. Here St. Denis is portrayed in his final hours holding his decapitated head, near the original 12th century carvings of the signs of the Zodiac on the doorjambs. The south portal illustrates the Last Communion of St. Denis, with the original heads replaced in the 19th century. A sculpture of St. Denis, carved in a fully developed naturalistic style of the early 13th century, was once located on the gable.
Saint-Denis held several cloisters, at least one of which contained an interesting variety of Gothic art. The main cloister, constructed sometime after Suger's death and destroyed ca. 1751, has yielded the only remaining intact column sculpture of a king from Saint-Denis. Now preserved at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, this intricately carved figure parallels sculptures on the west façade at Chartres. For all the history and its amazing sculpture the church of ST. DENIS should be preserved to show future generations the importance of history and how Christianity had  been built. In addition, the church of ST DENIS should be considered as one of the most important churches in the world because it has been recognized to be where gothic structure was born.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Work cited</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Bony, J. 1983. French Gothic Architecture of the 12th and 13th centuries. Berkeley, Los
Angeles, and London, University of California Press.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Williamson, P. 1995. Gothic Sculpture. New Haven and London, Yale University Press.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Charles, W. 1988. The Abbey Church of Saint-Denis: Birthplace of Gothic Art and Architecture  Vol.4 No.2 of Athena Review.  London, university of California Press.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">The humanistic tradition vol. 1 Fiero 6e.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Michel. 1973. Histoire de l'abbaye royale de Saint-Denys en France: Lettre-préf. de M. le Duc de Bauffremont. Introd. de Hervé Pinoteau. 1. [Nachdr. d. Ausg. Paris, 1706]. - 1973. - 524 S. Paris: Éd. du Palais Royal Félibien.</p>