Note 293 — Chapter IX · The Gothic Art of Burgundy[267]

St. Père-sous-Vézelay, below the hill, occupies the site where Girard de Roussillon’s foundation was first established. The present church is a typical Burgundian Gothic edifice, partly of the XII and partly of the XIII century. Carved corbels catch the fall of certain diagonals, and in place of a triforium is an interior passageway that passes through the shafts. In the opening years of the XIV century was added the narthex, a noble porch of two bays whose capitals have foliage in little bunches set in two rows. The façade is decorated by big statues like that of the Madeleine church, a mile away, and at the corners of the tower, a landmark for the valley, are sculptured angels blowing trumpets. The choir of St. Père-sous-Vézelay was wrecked during the English wars, and was in large part rebuilt as late-Gothic. Congrès Archéologique, 1907, p. 16; Abbé Pissier, “Notice historique sur Saint-Père-sous-Vézelay,” in Bull. de la Soc. des Sciences de l’Yonne, 1902, vol. 56, pp. 33, 275.