Sainte-Chapelle

Paris (1er arrondissement)

In 1239 Saint Louis bought from Baldwin II, Latin Emperor of Constantinople, Christ's Crown of Thorns, which the emperor had pledged to Venetian bankers. The price, 135,000 livres tournois, represented according to the official site half the kingdom's annual revenue. To house the relic, and those he acquired in 1241, among them a fragment of the True Cross, the king had a two-level chapel built within his palace on the Île de la Cité in under seven years: the upper chapel is lit by fifteen stained-glass windows, 1,113 scenes of which two thirds date from the Middle Ages. It was consecrated in 1248. At the Revolution the reliquaries were melted down and the relics dispersed; the Crown, handed to the Archbishop of Paris in 1804, joined the treasury of Notre-Dame in 1806. Restored in the nineteenth century by Duban, Lassus and Boeswillwald, the chapel was listed as a historic monument in 1862. Together with the Conciergerie, which has its own entry, it is what remains of the palace of the Capetian kings.

Getting there : Open every day except 1 January, 1 May and 25 December, paid entry; joint ticket with the Conciergerie.

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound