#strasbourg minster

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Saint Nicholas Day

Saint Nicholas Day has been celebrated on December 6 of every year. It is the feast day of Saint Nicholas celebrated as a Christian festival. It is, of course, a day for the children who have waited for the whole year to receive gifts. Christmas wouldn’t begin without the start of this feast. Saint Nicholas is known for his reputation as a bringer of gifts, and the attendance of Mass or worship services. He is the true Santa Claus and Father Christmas. The feast falls early in the Advent season. The saint is well-known across many countries in different names like Belsnickle, Niglo, Pelznickel, and others. Saint Nicholas Day is celebrated all over the world as to symbolizes the act of gift giving for many.

“The giver of every good and perfect gift has called upon us to mimic. His giving, by grace, through faith, and this is not of ourselves.” – St. Nicholas of Myra

History of Saint Nicholas Day

The first observance of Saint Nicholas Day is unknown. It is observed in the Western Christian countries on December 5. It is the feast day of Saint Nicholas who was also called as the Nikolaos of Myra. Saint Nicholas was a historic Christian saint born at Patara, Lycia in Asia Minor. He lived during the 4th century and was also a Greek Bishop of Myra, in Asia Minor. The history states that he had sold all his possessions for the sake of helping the poor people with money. He was grown to be a devout Christian, and he had dedicated his whole life serving the sick and suffering. During his lifetime he had developed a tradition of gift-giving by putting the coins in the shoes of other people. Even this form of culture accounts for many of the Christmas traditions till today. People have begun to leave the gifts in shoes or boots.

Saint Nicholas was raised by wealthy parents who died due to epidemic while he was young. On obeying the words of Jesus, “sell what you own and give the money to the poor,” Nicholas made his whole wealth to assist the needy, the sick, and the suffering. He had dedicated his life serving God and was made as the Bishop of Myra while he was still a young man. He was greatly known throughout the land for his kindness and generosity. He had involved himself in helping for those in need, his love for children, and he cared for sailors and ships. He had died on December 6, AD 343 in Myra. The death anniversary of St. Nicholas was made as a day of celebration, St. Nicholas Day.

There are so many legendary stories that revolve about St. Nicholas from around the world. All of them had later became a part of the inspiration for the modern day Santa Claus. It is widely believed that St. Nicholas visits each child to present them with gifts. So the kids would leave the carrots or hay in their shoes overnight which will be eaten by St. Nicholas donkey. St. Nicholas will take the hay and carrots for his donkey, and returns them with small gifts and treats for the children in the morning. The Day traditions include leaving the gifts in shoes or the exchange of small gifts. Traditionally, the celebration Day treats are left for those good boys and girls, and a twig or chunk of coal left for the naughty ones.

One another famous story goes that there was a poor man who had three daughters. He wasn’t able to get them married as he hadn’t had enough money for a dowry. On finding this, Nicholas had secretly dropped a bag of gold down the chimney one night. It had fallen into a stocking that had been left by the fire to dry. It made the eldest daughter to get married. Now the father decided to find out who had given him the money. Eventually, he caught Nicholas who again dropped in another bag of gold. Although Nicholas didn’t want to draw attention to himself, word got out, which made anyone who got a secret gift later to suspect that it was from him.

How to Celebrate Saint Nicholas Day

The best way to celebrate Saint Nicholas Day is by giving a surprise gift for the person you love. Take this celebration Day as an opportunity to know more in detail about Saint Nicholas. You can provide gifts and presents to people around you and make their Day a little more special. Educate your children about the importance of helping people who are in need. As there were so many magical and lesson teaching stories exists about Saint Nicholas, you can even tell them as their bedtime stories with the events of St. Nicholas. Arrange for a party and gather your friends and family, give them surprise gifts by camouflaging as Santa.

Source

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Clocks (No. 21)

Strasbourg Cathedral, F (two pics)

Jessop's Clock, San Diego

Old St. Mary's Church, San Francisco

Ferry Building, San Francisco

Santa Barbara County Courthouse (three pics)

Custom House Tower, Boston (two pics)

[rabbitcruiser]

Saint Nicholas Day

Saint Nicholas Day has been celebrated on December 6 of every year. It is the feast day of Saint Nicholas celebrated as a Christian festival. It is, of course, a day for the children who have waited for the whole year to receive gifts. Christmas wouldn’t begin without the start of this feast. Saint Nicholas is known for his reputation as a bringer of gifts, and the attendance of Mass or worship services. He is the true Santa Claus and Father Christmas. The feast falls early in the Advent season. The saint is well-known across many countries in different names like Belsnickle, Niglo, Pelznickel, and others. Saint Nicholas Day is celebrated all over the world as to symbolizes the act of gift giving for many.

“The giver of every good and perfect gift has called upon us to mimic. His giving, by grace, through faith, and this is not of ourselves.” – St. Nicholas of Myra

History of Saint Nicholas Day

The first observance of Saint Nicholas Day is unknown. It is observed in the Western Christian countries on December 5. It is the feast day of Saint Nicholas who was also called as the Nikolaos of Myra. Saint Nicholas was a historic Christian saint born at Patara, Lycia in Asia Minor. He lived during the 4th century and was also a Greek Bishop of Myra, in Asia Minor. The history states that he had sold all his possessions for the sake of helping the poor people with money. He was grown to be a devout Christian, and he had dedicated his whole life serving the sick and suffering. During his lifetime he had developed a tradition of gift-giving by putting the coins in the shoes of other people. Even this form of culture accounts for many of the Christmas traditions till today. People have begun to leave the gifts in shoes or boots.

Saint Nicholas was raised by wealthy parents who died due to epidemic while he was young. On obeying the words of Jesus, “sell what you own and give the money to the poor,” Nicholas made his whole wealth to assist the needy, the sick, and the suffering. He had dedicated his life serving God and was made as the Bishop of Myra while he was still a young man. He was greatly known throughout the land for his kindness and generosity. He had involved himself in helping for those in need, his love for children, and he cared for sailors and ships. He had died on December 6, AD 343 in Myra. The death anniversary of St. Nicholas was made as a day of celebration, St. Nicholas Day.

There are so many legendary stories that revolve about St. Nicholas from around the world. All of them had later became a part of the inspiration for the modern day Santa Claus. It is widely believed that St. Nicholas visits each child to present them with gifts. So the kids would leave the carrots or hay in their shoes overnight which will be eaten by St. Nicholas donkey. St. Nicholas will take the hay and carrots for his donkey, and returns them with small gifts and treats for the children in the morning. The Day traditions include leaving the gifts in shoes or the exchange of small gifts. Traditionally, the celebration Day treats are left for those good boys and girls, and a twig or chunk of coal left for the naughty ones.

One another famous story goes that there was a poor man who had three daughters. He wasn’t able to get them married as he hadn’t had enough money for a dowry. On finding this, Nicholas had secretly dropped a bag of gold down the chimney one night. It had fallen into a stocking that had been left by the fire to dry. It made the eldest daughter to get married. Now the father decided to find out who had given him the money. Eventually, he caught Nicholas who again dropped in another bag of gold. Although Nicholas didn’t want to draw attention to himself, word got out, which made anyone who got a secret gift later to suspect that it was from him.

How to Celebrate Saint Nicholas Day

The best way to celebrate Saint Nicholas Day is by giving a surprise gift for the person you love. Take this celebration Day as an opportunity to know more in detail about Saint Nicholas. You can provide gifts and presents to people around you and make their Day a little more special. Educate your children about the importance of helping people who are in need. As there were so many magical and lesson teaching stories exists about Saint Nicholas, you can even tell them as their bedtime stories with the events of St. Nicholas. Arrange for a party and gather your friends and family, give them surprise gifts by camouflaging as Santa.

Source

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Churches (No. 39)

Cathedral of Our Lady of Strasbourg

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Strasbourg Cathedral, F (No. 3)

The cathedral's south transept houses an 18-metre (59 ft) astronomical clock, one of the largest in the world. Its first forerunner was the so-called Dreikönigsuhr ("three-king clock") of 1352-1354, located at the opposite wall from where today's clock is. Then starting in 1547 a new clock was built by Christian Herlin, and others, but the construction was interrupted when the Cathedral was handed over to the Roman Catholic Church. Construction was resumed in 1571 by Conrad Dasypodius and the Habrecht brothers, and this clock was astronomically much more involved. It also had paintings by the Swiss painter Tobias Stimmer. That clock functioned into the late 18th Century and can be seen today in the Strasbourg Museum of Decorative Arts. The clock existing today originated in 1838-1843 (the clock has 1838-1842, but the celestial globe was only finished on June 24, 1843) and was built by Jean-Baptiste Schwilgué in Dasypodius' clock case, and with roughly the same functions, but equipped with completely new mechanics. Schwilgué made a number of preliminary studies years before, such as a design of the computus mechanism (Easter computation) in 1816, and built a prototype in 1821. This mechanism, whose whereabouts are now unknown, could compute Easter following the complex Gregorian rule. The astronomical part is unusually accurate; it indicates leap years, equinoxes, and more astronomical data. Thus it was already much more a complex calculating machine than a clock. Often the complicated functioning of the Strasbourg Clock made specialized mathematical knowledge necessary (not just technical knowledge). The clock was able to determine the computus (date of Easter in the Christian calendar) at a time when computers did not yet exist. Easter had been defined at the First Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325 as "the Sunday that follows the fourteenth day of the moon that falls on March 21 or immediately after". (See also Easter controversy, Ecclesiastical new moon, and Paschal Full Moon.) Today tourists see only the sculpted figurines of this clock, but behind this ensemble there is a mechanism that engages and that represents one of the most beautiful curiosities of the Cathedral. The animated characters launch into movement at different hours of the day. One angel sounds the bell while a second turns over an hourglass. Different characters, representing the ages of life (from a child to an old man) parade in front of Death. On the last level are the Apostles, passing in front of Christ. The clock shows much more than the official time; it also indicates solar time, the day of the week (each represented by a god of mythology), the month, the year, the sign of the zodiac, the phase of the moon and the position of several planets. All these automatons are put into operation at 12:30 PM. According to legend, the creator of this clock had his eyes gouged out afterward, to prevent him from reproducing it. Similar legends are told for other clocks, such as the astronomical clock in Prague. In the same room, there is a statue of a man resting his elbows on a balustrade. According to legend this was a rival architect to the one who had built the pillar of angels, the architectural feat of the era, who contended that one single pillar could never support such a large vault, and he would wait to see the whole thing come crashing down. From 1858 until 1989, the clock was taken care of by the Ungerer company. This company was founded in 1858 by two brothers, Albert and Théodore Ungerer ( Tomi Ungerer's great grandfather) who were Schwilgué's assistants and later in charge of the astronomical clock for three generations. Since 1989, the clock has been taken care of by Alfred Faullimmel, and his son Ludovic, for the Strasbourg cathedral. Mr. Faullimmel had been employed by Ungerer between 1955 and 1989.

Source: Wikipedia

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Strasbourg Cathedral, F (No. 2)

Protestant and Revolutionary iconoclasm, the war periods of 1681, 1870 and 1940–1944 as well as changes in taste and liturgy have taken a toll of some of Strasbourg Cathedral's most outstanding features such as the choir screen of 1252 and the successive high altars (ca. 1500 and 1682), but many treasures remain inside the building; others, or fragments of them, being displayed in the Musée de l’Œuvre Notre-Dame. The outstanding elements are: • Stained glass windows, mostly 14th century, some late 12th century (northern transept) and 13th century ("emperor windows" in the northern lateral nave), some 20th century (southern transept, choir). Stained glass windows from the former Dominican Church, destroyed in 1870, in the Chapelle Saint-Laurent and Chapelle Saint-André. • Tombstone of Conrad de Lichtenberg in the Chapelle Saint-Jean-Baptiste, ca. 1300. Facing it, monument to a canon by Nikolaus Gerhaert (1464). • Richly ornate baptismal font by Jost Dotzinger in the northern transept, 1443 • Richly ornate pulpit by Hans Hammer, north-east of the central nave, 1486 • Life-sized group of sculptures "Christ on the Mount of Olives" in the northern transept, facing the baptismal font (previously in the Église Saint-Thomas), 1498; the cross towering above it is from 1825 • Suspended pipe organ on the north side of the central nave (Organ case of 1385, 1491; mechanism and registers by Alfred Kern, 1981) • Choir pipe organ, north side of the choir, Joseph Merklin, 1878 • Crypt pipe organ, 1998 • Busts of Apostles from the high altar of 1682 along the semi-circular wall closing the choir, wood, 17th century • Tapestries "Life of Mary", Paris, 17th century, acquired by the Cathedral's chapter in the 18th century • Altars in the chapels (15th–19th centuries); large Baroque altar of 1698 (structure) and 1776 (paintings) in the Chapelle Saint-Laurent

Source: Wikipedia

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Strasbourg Cathedral, F (No. 1)

Strasbourg Cathedral or the Cathedral of Our Lady of Strasbourg (French: Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Strasbourg, or Cathédrale de Strasbourg, German: Liebfrauenmünster zu Strassburg or Strassburger Münster), also known as Strasbourg Minster, is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Strasbourg, Alsace, France. Although considerable parts of it are still in Romanesque architecture, it is widely considered to be among the finest examples of high, or late, Gothic architecture. Erwin von Steinbach is credited for major contributions from 1277 to his death in 1318. At 142 metres (466 feet), it was the world's tallest building from 1647 to 1874 (227 years), when it was surpassed by St. Nikolai's Church, Hamburg. Today it is the sixth-tallest church in the world and the highest extant structure built entirely in the Middle Ages. Described by Victor Hugo as a "gigantic and delicate marvel", and by Goethe as a "sublimely towering, wide-spreading tree of God", the cathedral is visible far across the plains of Alsace and can be seen from as far off as the Vosges Mountains or the Black Forest on the other side of the Rhine. Sandstone from the Vosges used in construction gives the cathedral its characteristic pink hue. Like the city of Strasbourg, the cathedral connects German and French cultural influences, while the eastern structures, e.g. the choir and south portal, still have very Romanesque features, with more emphasis placed on walls than on windows. Above all, the famous west front, decorated with thousands of figures, is a masterpiece of the Gothic era. The tower is one of the first to rely substantially on craftsmanship, with the final appearance being one with a high degree of linearity captured in stone. While previous façades were certainly drawn prior to construction, Strasbourg has one of the earliest façades whose construction is inconceivable without prior drawing. Strasbourg and Cologne Cathedral together represent some of the earliest uses of architectural drawing. The work of Professor Robert O. Bork of the University of Iowa suggests that the design of the Strasbourg façade, while seeming almost random in its complexity, can be constructed using a series of rotated octagons. The north tower, completed in 1439, was the world's tallest building from 1647 (when the spire of St. Mary's church, Stralsund burnt down) until 1874 (when the tower of St. Nikolai's Church in Hamburg was completed). The planned south tower was never built and as a result, with its characteristic asymmetrical form, the Strasbourg cathedral is now the premier landmark of Alsace. One can see 30 kilometers from the observation level, which provides a view of the Rhine banks from the Vosges all the way to the Black Forest. The octagonal tower as it can be seen is the combined work of architects Ulrich Ensingen (shaft) and Johannes Hültz of Cologne (top). Ensingen worked on the Cathedral from 1399 to 1419, and Hültz from 1419 to 1439. In 1505, architect Jakob von Landshut and sculptor Hans von Aachen finished rebuilding the Saint-Lawrence portal (Portail Saint-Laurent) outside the northern transept in a markedly post-Gothic, early-Renaissance style. As with the other portals of the Cathedral, most of the statues now to be seen in situ are copies, the originals having been moved to the Musée de l’Œuvre Notre-Dame.

Construction of the cathedral (1176–1439) The known dimensions of the building are as follows: • Total length: 112 m (367 ft) • Total inside length: 103 m (338 ft) • Exterior height of central nave (roof): 40 m (130 ft) • Inside height of central nave: 32 m (105 ft) • Inside height of lateral naves: 19 m (62 ft) • Inside height of narthex: 42 m (138 ft) • Width between pillars of central nave: 16 m (52 ft) • Height of crossing dome: 58 m (190 ft) • Height of platform: 66 m (217 ft) • Height of spire: 142 m (466 ft) • Exterior width of west façade: 51.5 m (169 ft) • Diameter of west façade rose window: 13.6 m (45 ft) • Surface area: 6,044 square meters (1.5 acre)

Source: Wikipedia

[qs-traveldiary]

"Strasbourg Cathedral or the Cathedral of Our Lady of Strasbourg  also known as Strasbourg Minster, is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Strasbourg, Alsace, France. Although considerable parts of it are still in Romanesque architecture, it is widely considered to be among the finest examples of high, or late, Gothic architecture. Erwin von Steinbach is credited for major contributions from 1277 to his death in 1318.

At 142 metres (466 feet), it was the world's tallest building from 1647 to 1874 (227 years), when it was surpassed by St. Nikolai's Church, Hamburg. Today it is the sixth-tallest church in the world and the highest extant structure built entirely in the Middle Ages."