Notre Dame de Paris

Notre Dame de Paris (IPA: [nɔtʁ dam də paʁi]; French for "Our Lady of Paris"), also known as Notre Dame Cathedral or simply Notre Dame,^[2] is a historicRoman Catholic Marian cathedral on the eastern half of the Île de la Cité in thefourth arrondissement of Paris, France. Widely considered one of the finest examples of French Gothic architecture and among the largest and most well-known churches in the world,^[3] Notre Dame is the cathedral of the CatholicArchdiocese of Paris; that is, it is the church that contains the cathedra (official chair) of the Archbishop of Paris, currently André Vingt-Trois. The cathedral treasury is notable for its reliquary, which houses the purported crown of thorns, a fragment of the True Cross and one of the Holy Nails – all instruments of the Passion and a few of the most important first-class relics.

Notre Dame de Paris is often reputed to be one of the most prominent examples of Gothic architecture in both France and in Europe as a whole, and the naturalism of its sculptures and stained glass are in contrast with earlier Romanesque architecture. The first period of construction from 1163 into 1240s coincided with the musical experiments of the Notre Dame school

The cathedral suffered desecration during the radical phase of the French Revolutionin the 1790s, when much of its religious imagery was damaged or destroyed. An extensive restoriansupervised by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc removed remaining decoration, returning the cathedral to an 'orginalgothic state.