Notre-Dame Cathedral of Paris

Two stone towers rise above the Ile de la Cite, capped by the dark, spiked silhouette of a central spire. This is Notre Dame, a cathedral built over two centuries starting in the year eleven sixty-three. Bishop Maurice de Sully ordered its construction on the footprint of older churches, intended to dominate the skyline of medieval Paris. Within its walls, the heavy stone vaulting once held the weight of royal coronations and state funerals, securing its place at the center of French national life.