Musée de l'Œuvre-Notre-Dame
Gothic museum of original cathedral sculptures inside a medieval building-fund house and courtyard garden.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Musée de l'Œuvre-Notre-Dame in Strasbourg starts with Synagoga, a blindfolded sandstone figure carved around 1220 for the cathedral, set opposite a crowned, triumphant Ecclesia in the medieval imagination. It traces the foundation that commissioned her, the Fondation de l'Œuvre Notre-Dame, an institution that ran cathedral construction like a business, selling indulgences and confraternity memberships, and forbidding its treasurers to marry. You'll hear how the Black Death in the 1340s reshaped its fortunes as land prices collapsed around Strasbourg. Look closely at her weathered face for the chisel marks a nameless medieval workshop left behind.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Cathédrale Notre-Dame-de-Strasbourg
Gothic cathedral with a single soaring spire, guarded for eight centuries by its own stonemasons' lodge.
Place de la Cathédrale Strasbourg
Cobbled square before a Gothic cathedral, ringed by a stonemasons' lodge and a carved Renaissance merchant's house.
Grande-Île de Strasbourg
Canal-laced medieval island of half-timbered houses beneath a Gothic cathedral's astronomical clock.
St William's Church, Strasbourg
Brick Gothic parish church topped by a boatmen's anchor, with medieval glass and a carved double tomb inside.
Église Saint-Pierre-le-Jeune
Gothic church over a Merovingian crypt, ringed by a Romanesque cloister of ancient tombstones.
Astronomical Clock
Mechanical marvel of chiming automata, where a gilded rooster and apostles still parade past Christ every day at noon.