Notre Dame Cathedral Fire: All Three Rose Windows Survived

The fire that raged through Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris on Monday cause a massive amount of [...]

By Hannah Barnes

The fire that raged through Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris on Monday cause a massive amount of damage to the iconic building, though several of the structure's historical features have remained intact.

Some of those features include the cathedral's three rose windows, which are massive round stained-glass windows that sit over the cathedral's three main portals. They date back to the 13th century and are one of the building's many focal points.

There are three windows — North, South and West — with the North Rose having been built first around 1250. The largest is the South window, which measures around 60 feet high. All of the windows feature Biblical scenes from the Old and New Testaments, stories of the lives of the Twelve Apostles and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the cathedral's website calls them "one of the greatest masterpieces of Christianity."

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(Photo: vadim kozlovsky / Shutterstock.com)

Footage of the inside of the cathedral taken after the blaze shows that the windows have remained, as well as many of the church's pews. "The large rose windows don't appear to have suffered catastrophic damage," Franck Riester, France's culture minister, said in a news conference in Paris on Tuesday, via the New York Times.

Along with the windows, the cathedral's Great Organ, which sits in front of the West Rose, also remains intact, as does its main sanctuary, facade and twin bell towers. The largest of the cathedral's bells dates to 1681 and has been rung at several important events in history, including the end of the two world wars.

Several historical artifacts were also saved after the blaze began, including the Crown of Thorns, believed to have been worn by Jesus Christ on the cross, the Tunic of Saint Louis, which is said to have belonged to King Louis IX, and other works. The artifacts will be transferred to the Louvre Museum for safekeeping, Riester said on French radio on Tuesday.

The fate of other items, including a fragment of the True Cross, the cross that Jesus was crucified on, and one of the Holy Nails, believed to be from that cross, is unclear. Riester also noted that several of the cathedral's large paintings appear to be unaffected but may have sustained water damage and have been harmed by smoke.

Photo Credit: Luca Moi / Shutterstock.com

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