Beauvais Cathedral
| Cathedral of Saint Peter of Beauvais Cathédrale Saint Pierre |
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Beauvais Cathedral from SE.
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| Basic information | |
| Location |
France 
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| Geographic coordinates | 49°25′57″N 2°04′53″E / 49.4326°N 2.0814°ECoordinates: 49°25′57″N 2°04′53″E / 49.4326°N 2.0814°E |
| Affiliation | Roman Catholic |
| Province | Diocese of Beauvais, Noyon, and Senlis |
| Region | Picardy |
| Country | France |
| Year consecrated | 1272 |
| Ecclesiastical or organizational status | Cathedral |
| Status | Active |
| Heritage designation | 1840 |
| Leadership | Jacques Benoit-Gonnin |
| Website | www |
| Architectural description | |
| Architect(s) |
Enguerrand Le Riche Martin Chambiges |
| Architectural type | church |
| Architectural style | French Gothic |
| Groundbreaking | 1225 |
| Completed | Never completed. Works halted in 1600. |
| Specifications | |
| Length | 72.5 m (238 ft) |
| Width | 67.2 m (220 ft) |
| Width (nave) | 16 m (52 ft) |
| Height (max) | 48.5 m (159 ft) (nave) |
| Official name: Cathédrale Notre-Dame | |
| Designated | 1840 |
| Reference no. | PA00114502 |
| Denomination | Église |
The Cathedral of Saint Peter of Beauvais (French: Cathédrale Saint-Pierre de Beauvais) is a Roman Catholic church in the northern town of Beauvais, France. Constructed from the 13th-century onwards, it is the seat of the Bishop of Beauvais, Noyon, and Senlis. Of the Gothic style, it consists only of a transept (16th-century) and choir, with apse and seven polygonal apsidal chapels (13th-century), which are reached by an ambulatory.
A small Romanesque church dating back to the 10th-century, known as the Basse Œuvre, still occupies the site destined for the nave of the Beauvais Cathedral.
Work was begun in 1225 under count-bishop Milo of Nanteuil, with funding of his family, immediately after the third in a series of fires in the old wooden-roofed basilica, which had reconsecrated its altar only three years before the fire; the choir was completed in 1272, in two campaigns, with an interval (1232–38) owing to a funding crisis provoked by a struggle with Louis IX. The two campaigns are distinguishable by a slight shift in the axis of the work and by what Stephen Murray characterizes as "changes in stylistic handwriting." Under Bishop , an extra 4.9 m was added to the height, to make it the highest-vaulted cathedral in Europe. The vaulting in the interior of the choir reaches 48 m (157.48 feet) in height, far surpassing the concurrently constructed Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Amiens, with its 42-metre (138 ft) nave. (A formerly often-quoted beginning date of 1247 was based on an error made by an early historian of Beauvais.)
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Wikipedia