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How France Built Her Cathedrals

Note 247 — Chapter VIII · Gothic in the Midi (continued 2)

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Nothing now at St. Victor’s, Marseilles, is earlier than the XI century. A pre-Gothic use of diagonal ribs (with Lombard rectangular profiles) cropped out here, yet when the upper church was remodeled in the XIII century, Romanesque vaulting was used. Urban V rebuilt the transept, made the square apse, and raised the battlemented towers. When he visited Marseilles in 1373 every man in the city ceased his work to welcome him. As it was his desire to be buried in his former abbey, his remains were brought hither in 1372, and his successor, Gregory XI, raised a sumptuous Gothic monument forty feet in height. Abbé A. d’Agnel, “L’abbaye de St. Victor de Marseilles,” in Bulletin historique et philosophique, 1906, p. 364; Eugène Müntz, “St. Victor, Marseilles,” in Gazette Archéol., 1884.

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