However, flying buttresses were certainly part of the scheme devised by a second
builder for the newly enlarged and expanded nave. And it is likely that it was this second
builder who actually completed the main vaults of the chevet, which may have been
beyond the capabilities of the first builder. The second builder increased the width of the
nave over that of the chevet and made the wall both physically thinner and more open
than had his predecessor. His scheme in fact depends on flying buttresses, the external
bracing system that is the visual hallmark of Gothic cathedrals. Although the flying
buttresses of the nave of Notre-Dame de Paris may not be the first examples, they are
unquestionably the most influential, the ones that proved the efficacy of the system. By
the time the nave was nearing completion in the late 1190s, flying buttresses had become
standard features in the schemes of countless Gothic structures.
The west façade of Notre-Dame was undertaken ca. 1200 and may represent yet
another aggrandizement of the earlier plan. It has long been recognized that not only was
it started before the last bays of the nave were constructed but that it contains in the
south, or Sainte-Anne, portal sculpture that was prepared for a west-façade scheme
beginning in the 1150s but that was placed in the present façade only ca. 1210. The most
famous sculptural feature of the façade, the gallery of kings—representations of the kings
of France from Merovingian times to the early 13th century—may be a commemoration
of the victory of Philip II at the Battle of Bouvines in 1214, after which he was known as
“Augustus.” Thus, the façade of Notre-Dame might equally be read as the triumphal arch
of Philip Augustus.
The three sculpted portals of Notre-Dame were probably undertaken simultaneously.
Although the sculpture was badly damaged during the French Revolution—all of the
statue columns in the three portals and all of the kings in the gallery were destroyed—
enough original material remains for us to determine that the figure of Christ and one of
the flanking angels in the tympanum of the center portal had to be replaced ca. 1230.
While work was still continuing on the towers of the west façade, work began again in
the chevet and nave, ca. 1225/30. The decision was made to enlarge the clerestory
windows downward in order to increase the interior light. The main effort of this
undertaking, however, was the systematic replacement of the earlier flying buttresses by
new ones that abutted the wall at a higher level.
Almost on the heels of the rebuilding of the flying buttresses and enlargement of the
clerestory windows came the construction of the first chapels between the buttresses of
the nave and the decision to extend the transept arms by one bay on each side and to add
sculpted portals. The
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