The Chapel of the Foundlings, Paris
Foundlings were babies who were literally just "found". Orphans without parents.
For them, pre-revolutionary France built this glorious chapel.
"Charles-Joseph Natoire decorated the Foundlings' Chapel opposite Notre-Dame (Cathcon- could not be more appropriate)as an immense piece of Italianate trompe-l'oeil: flanking both sides of the representational niche in the middle, the arcades showed processions of the Wise Men; peasant figures appeared above, while a false ceiling depicted a ruined roof in the manner of traditional Nativity scenes (the work of Paolo and Giovanni Brunetti, specialists in trompe-l'oeil effects)."
The finest for those with nothing.
The Chapel was destroyed in the French Revolution.
Like the Reformation, the Revolution was the enemy of the corporal works of mercy which shows a society to be Christian in its most profound sense.
Someone once accused me, thinking that he could score a point in a debate, accused me of rejecting the principals of the French Revolution.
My answer then as now, you bet I do.
The Venerable Bede wept copiously when he heard "Ne derelinquas nos orphanos, Domine" the verse for the Ascension which was the day of his death in 735, as he himself was by account an orphan.
For them, pre-revolutionary France built this glorious chapel.
"Charles-Joseph Natoire decorated the Foundlings' Chapel opposite Notre-Dame (Cathcon- could not be more appropriate)as an immense piece of Italianate trompe-l'oeil: flanking both sides of the representational niche in the middle, the arcades showed processions of the Wise Men; peasant figures appeared above, while a false ceiling depicted a ruined roof in the manner of traditional Nativity scenes (the work of Paolo and Giovanni Brunetti, specialists in trompe-l'oeil effects)."
The finest for those with nothing.
The Chapel was destroyed in the French Revolution.
Like the Reformation, the Revolution was the enemy of the corporal works of mercy which shows a society to be Christian in its most profound sense.
Someone once accused me, thinking that he could score a point in a debate, accused me of rejecting the principals of the French Revolution.
My answer then as now, you bet I do.
The Venerable Bede wept copiously when he heard "Ne derelinquas nos orphanos, Domine" the verse for the Ascension which was the day of his death in 735, as he himself was by account an orphan.
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