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La Sainte-Chapelle, Paris

The Sainte-Chapelle, the palatine chapel in the courtyard of the royal palace on the Ile de la Cite, was built to house precious relics: Christ's crown of thorns, the Image of Edessa and thirty other relics of Christ that had been in the possession of Louis IX since August 1239, when it arrived from Venice in the hands of two Dominican friars. Unlike many devout aristocrats, who swiped relics, the saintly Louis bought his precious relics of the Passion, purchased from the Latin emperor at Constantinople, Baldwin II, for the exorbitant sum of 135,000 livres, which was paid to the Venetians, to whom it had been pawned. The entire chapel, by contrast, cost 40,000 livres to build and until it was complete the relics were housed at chapels at the Chateau de Vincennes and a specially-built chapel at the Chateau de Saint-Germain-en-Laye. In 1241 a piece of the True Cross was added, and other relics. Thus the building in Paris, consecrated 26 April 1248, was like a precious reliquary: even the stonework was painted, with medallions of saints and martyrs in the quatrefoils of the dado arcade, which was hung with rich textiles. - wiki

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Uploaded on Mar 15, 2009

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