Cologne Cathedral

INTRODUCTION:

         一般认为第一座真正的哥特式教堂是巴黎郊区的圣丹尼教堂。法国早期哥特式教堂的代表作是巴黎圣母院，法国哥特式建筑盛期的代表作是亚眠主教堂 ，还有兰斯主教堂和沙特尔主教堂，它们与亚眠主教堂和博韦主教堂一起，被称为法国四大哥特式教堂。英国的索尔兹伯里主教堂和坎特伯雷教堂.德国最早的哥特式教堂之一科隆主教堂，乌尔姆主教堂。意大利最著名的哥特式教堂是米兰大教堂。 

         Cologne Cathedral (Latin: Ecclesia Cathedralis Sanctorum Petri et Mariae, officially Hohe Domkirche St. Petrus, English:High Cathedral of St. Peter) is a Roman Catholic church in Cologne, Germany. It is the seat of the Archbishop of Cologne and the administration of the Archdiocese of Cologne. It is a renowned monument of German Catholicism and Gothic architecture and is a World Heritage Site. It is Germany's most visited landmark, attracting an average of 20,000 people a day.

         Construction of Cologne Cathedral commenced in 1248 and was halted in 1473, leaving it unfinished. Work restarted in the  19th century and was completed, to the original plan, in 1880. It is 144.5 metres (474 ft) long, 86.5 m (284 ft) wide and its  towers are approximately 157 m (515 ft) tall. The cathedral is the largest Gothic church in Northern Europe and has the second-tallest spires (after Ulm Minster. See info-box below.) Its two huge spires give it the largest façade of any church in the world. The choir has the largest height to width ratio, 3.6:1, of any medieval church.
       
         Cologne's medieval builders had planned a grand structure to house the reliquary of the Three Kings and fit its role as a place of worship for the Holy Roman Emperor. Despite having been left incomplete during the medieval period, Cologne Cathedral eventually became unified as "a masterpiece of exceptional intrinsic value" and "a powerful testimony to the strength and  persistence of Christian belief in medieval and modern Europe".