Cologne - Cathedral

The foundation stone of the Cologne Cathedral (Kölner Dom) was laid on 15 August 1248. The eastern arm was completed and got consecrated in 1322. In 1473 the works came to a halt, leaving the south tower complete up to the belfry level and crowned with a huge crane for the next 400 years.

After the original plans for the façade had been found in Darmstadt and Paris 1814/1816 it was decided to complete the cathedral. Two thirds of the costs were raised by civic efforts, while the remaining costs were covered by the Prussian state. The state saw this as a way to improve its relations with the large number of Catholic subjects it had gained in 1815, when the Catholic Rhineland was added to the Protestant Prussian Kingdom.

In 1842 Frederick William IV of Prussia and Johannes von Geissel, later archbishop of Cologne, laid the foundation stone for the completion. In 1880, 632 years after construction had begun, the Cologne Cathedral was completed. The celebration was attended by Emperor Wilhelm I.

The design of Cologne Cathedral was based quite closely on that of Amiens Cathedral. As it is a Gothic cathedral, the plan is in the shape of a Latin Cross with two aisles on either side. The window surface area is about 10.000m², About 1.500m² of these are medieval.

One of the windows, named the "Dreikönigenfenster"("The Magi window"), was created around 1330. Depicted here is the Adoration of the Magi. The eldest king kneels in front of the Virgin and Child holding out a goblet filled with gold coins while the other two kings stand to the right and left of the image.

There are many images of the Magi here, as Rainald von Dassel, who was Archbishop of Cologne and a close adviser the Hohenstaufen emperor Frederick Barbarossa, brought the bones of the Three Magi with him to Cologne in 1164 as loot from Milan and as a gift of Barbarossa.

The relics are in a golden shrine in the Cologne Cathedral.

-------------

www.koelner-dom.de/index.php?id=home&L=1