1. The Gothic Cathedral, Dante’s Divine Comedy and Gothic Music
Sacred Geometry
The Gothic Cathedral, Dante’s Divine Comedy and Gothic Music

2. God the Geometer The Geometry of the Cosmos
Numbers and Christian Symbolism
The School of Chartres and Plato’s Timaeus

3. The Age of Synthesis Scholasticism The Interconnectedness of Life
Divine Plan
Social Order
Church Order
Vision
Observable
Hidden
Symbolic

4. Abbot Suger and St. Denis
“[t]he entire sanctuary is thus pervaded by a wonderful and continuous light entering through the most sacred windows....The work which nobly shines makes our minds shine so that they may go through the true lights to the true light, where Christ is the true door.”
The new architecture
Ribbed groin vaults
Flying Buttresses
Pointed arches
Arcade above the nave and choir colonnades
The introduction of stained glass, “garnished with all manner of precious stones” (Revelation 21:19).

5. The Cathedral of Notre Dame at Chartres

6. Architectural format Based on Plan developed during Romanesque.
Choir has been lengthened.
Transept has been shortened.
Uniform geometrical system applied to plan and elevation.

7. External Modifications
Notre Dame in Paris

8. Interior Modifications
Pointed Arch
Rib vaults
Arcade above nave

9. Chartres Cathedral West Facade
Application of the Golden Mean to the façade as a whole.
Tripartite division: tower and doors.
Tripartite division: doors, lancets and rose window.
Three doors and three lancets with larger central door/window.

10. Chartres Cathedral “Royal Portal”

11. Central Portal: Last Judgment
Observer leaves physical world behind
Visionary image of Christ in mandorla
Four symbols of the Evangelists
12 Disciples with Enoch and Elias

12. North Portal Ascension or Christ Before Creation
Labors of the Month (Harvesting and Pruning the Vine) and Signs of the Zodiac (Cancer and Aries)

13. South Portal Portal of the Virgin Tympanum and Lintel
New prominence of the Virgin
Mary as emblem of purity
Tympanum and Lintel
Virgin Enthroned
Presentation of Jesus in the Temple
Annunciation, Visitation and Nativity
Shepherd and tension between Man as corrupt and goodness of Creation

14. South Portal, Voussoirs
Seven Liberal Arts as women on the outside.
Bearded men as philosophers associated with each
Pythagors and Music; Donatus and Grammar
Dependence of secular learning on divine wisdom
Important enough to be included in theological image

15. Frieze of Capitals Life of Jesus Entry into Jerusalem Betrayal
Entombment

16. Chartres Interior Views

17. Chartres, additional interior views

18. West end windows from the interior
Symbolism of the Rose
Circles and numbers
Pointing toward the Holy

19. West Portal Lancet Windows
Tree of Jesse: Christ’s predecessors
Incarnation Window
Passion Window

20. Chartres, Stained Glass, west lancet windows

21. Detail of Passion Window

22. “La Belle Vierge” Contemporary with west lancets
Mary enthroned in heaven

23. Good Samaritan Window and Creation of Adam and Eve

24. Window donors (bakers), Signs of Zodiac, 3 Kings from Incarnation Window

25. Chartres Cathedral, Labyrinth

26. Gregorian Chant Neumes for the Kyrie Eleison

27. Notre Dame Organum: Gaudie Maria virgo

28. Dante degli Alighieri, 1265-1321
Florentine poet
Explored theme of Love in poets to Beatrice
Exiled from Florence in 1301 and never returned
Composed the Divine Comedy, an epic poem, in Tuscan Italian elevating the latter as an important language and the former as the standard

29. Formal Structure of the Divine Comedy
Three canticas of 33 cantos each plus an additional introductory canto for the first cantica
Composed in terza rima, 3-line verses, each line 11 syllables long with a rhyme scheme, ABA BCB CDC that ties the verses to each other and compels forward movement.

30. Content Structure of the Divine Comedy
Epic journey from Inferno to Purgatorio and finally Paradiso
Inferno consists of 9 circles in which each condemned receives appropriate torture.
Purgatorio with 7 terraces each associated with one of the deadly sins.
Paradiso comprised of nine spheres of Heaven.
Begins his journey on Holy Thursday 1300 guided by Vergil, author of the Aeneid
Enters Paradiso with the help of Beatrice

31. Dante holding a copy of his Divine Comedy in a painting by Michelini

32. Botticelli’s rendering of the Inferno

33. Diagram of Dante’s Inferno

34. Dante’s Cosmology