Paris: Musée de Cluny

Monday, 6 June, 2011

Destination #2:  Musée de Cluny, officially Musée National du Moyen Age Thermes de Cluny

I take a special delight in visiting museums whose edifices are as interesting as the collections they house. The Musée de Cluny is one such place.

Back when Paris was Lutetia, the area was divided into two sections. The Cité, located on what we known today as the Île de la Cité, was connected to the banks of the Seine on either side by wooden bridges. The open suburbs stretching up Mont Sainte-Geneviéve (now topped by the Panthéon) were populated by villas and vineyards. The Seine was not bounded by concrete embankments and spread over a much wider area, extending into flood plains that stretched as far as what would become the Benedictine Abbey of St-Germain-des-Prés in the 6th century. 

Representation of the Gallo-Roman city of Lutetia, from euratlas.com

Lutetia's aqueduct supplied three public baths. It can be hard to imagine the scale of these Thermae from the current ruins, which represent only about a third of the extent of the baths. It was a dynamic complex that continued to be expanded upon to meet the needs of the public, right up until its destruction by invading barbarians in the middle of the 3rd century.

Exterior shots of Roman ruins married to modern museum. Photos by John Phillips

The complex lay in ruins for roughly a thousand years until the Cluniac monks decided to establish a presence in the growing academic center of Paris in the 13th century. The reformed Benedictine order of Cluny was established in the 10th century by a predecessor of Eleanor's, William I of Aquitaine. In 1334 the order built a townhouse for its abbots abutting the ruins of the Roman Thermae, known thereafter as the Hotel de Cluny. It underwent modifications in the 16th century. Today it is one of the few examples of an intact late-medieval residence in Paris.

Cour d'Honneur of Hôtel de Cluny. Drawn by Gaucherel, steel engraving by Lemaitre, 1845

The building eventually passed into private ownership and an amateur historian named Alexandre Du Sommerard moved in sometime in the 1820s with his ever-expanding collection of medieval objets d'art. His collection soon became famous. It was popularly hoped that a permanent museum would be created, patterned after the Musée des Monuments Française founded by another amateur collector, Alexandre Lenoir (whom I wish I could like more for his preservation efforts but whose treatment of the reputed remains of Abélard and Héloïse left quite a lot to be desired; see my other  blog for details). 

When Du Sommerard died, his house combined with the Thermae become national property. The Cluny museum officially opened in 1844.

Over the years the collection has become more specific and refined, spanning the Roman Empire (28 BCE - 5 CE), Romanesque (1000-1250 CE) and Gothic eras (1251-1500).  The combination of the Cluny house and Thermae allows for a unique exhibition environment that remains dynamic and responsive to public needs. The museum has benefited from consistently responsible curatorship, an example being its closure in 1939 so the exhibits could be moved to a secure place for the duration of WWII. Although the Cluny does not contain any artifacts specifically associated with Eleanor, it is well worth visiting for any medieval history buff due to its history, location, and diverse collection. 

We entered through the medieval-inspired gardens.  I don't remember this space from my previous visit for good reason: the gardens were designed in 2000 by Eric Ossart and Arnaud Mauriéres. The plantings include medicinal and kitchen gardens and a section with mille fleurs. Much as I like gardens, I have to admit to being less than impressed...I'm not sure what medieval era the designers were trying to evoke with modern deck fencing. I guess that's why it's described as 'medieval-inspired."

 

From there we passed into the cobble-stoned Cour d'Honneur courtyard, with its charming old well and Flamboyant Gothic architecture.

I was particularly taken with the scallop shell theme in the Cour d'Honneur. Paris was a medieval gathering point for pilgrimages to the Camino de Santiago in modern-day Spain. Today's pilgrim would be hard-pressed to follow the exact medieval routes from Paris, since they've been covered by modern highways or buildings. But the interested aficionado of Santiago pilgrimages (and I have to admit that I'm rather obsessed) can find scallop shells and other St James symbols in historic places like the Cluny. Their presence conveys a profound sense of the pervasiveness of Chemins de Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle to medieval life. The Cluniac order established a series of way houses for pilgrims along the route to Galicia, and the abbot or other prelates residing at Hôtel de Cluny would have blessed pilgrims departing from Paris. 

Photo by John Phillips

Once inside, I was tickled to see a familiar friend waiting for me:

You can just see some of the traces of medieval polychromy decoration on this limestone statue of Saint Denis, who is dressed quite formally. He's probably heading out for a party.

Photo by John Phillips

Perhaps lovely Ariadne here is going to be at the same party? This was a beautifully carved piece of ivory from Constantinople dating to the 6th century...old enough that I can pretend that perhaps Eleanor saw it! 

There was truly an embarrassment of riches in the Cluny of alabaster reliefs, stained glass, choir stalls, and sculpture encompassing a span of some 1500 years. Add to that a marvelous setting incorporating Thermae walls, 16th century Gothic architecture and modern conveniences, and the eye didn't know where to rest.

Photo by John Phillips

And of course, there was the charming and irresistible bookstore!

Photo by John Phillips

Our group spent a lot of time in the Notre-Dame room, where we came face-to-face with those heads of the Kings of Judah that had lined the gallery of the great cathedral, then spent nearly two centuries buried underground until the building of a Metro stop unearthed them. Here are a few:

We couldn't stop staring at beautiful Adam here, circa 1260, who once graced the south transept facade at Notre Dame with Eve. He's been well re-constructed (heh heh) but at one time he also held an apple. Methinks he is over-compensating for his missing, uhm, apple by strategically wearing not just a fig leaf but an entire juvenile fig tree. 

Perhaps he'll party with Denis and Ariadne later?

Photo by John Phillips

There were fragments from Sainte-Chapelle, St-Denis, St-Genévieve, and St-Germaine-des-Prés throughout the museum.  

Photo by John Phillips

I particularly liked this head of the Queen of Sheba from one of the long-gone original portals of St-Denis. She dates to 1137-40 and is likely to have been something Eleanor would have seen when visiting St-Denis. I hope I can be forgiven for imagining the sculptor had Eleanor in mind as his model when he created this fierce, regal queen. But I must admit that her bulbous eyes have me a bit worried about the condition of her thyroid!

Photo by John Phillips

The piéce de résistance of the Cluny Museum is in the Rotunda of the Lady and the Unicorn. 

Photo by John Phillips

Discovered at Chateau de Boussac and acquired in 1882, these six tapestries were commissioned by the Le Viste family from Lyon. The pennants and armor bear the arms of the sponsor, Jean Le Viste, a powerful nobleman in the court of King Charles VII. The tapestries represent the mille-fleurs style, a popular medieval motif which refers to a background consisting of so many little flowers and plants. The five senses plus a sixth sense that eclipses them all, that of love and understanding and perspective, are represented. The room was kept very dark in order to preserve the extraordinary colors of these enormous silk and woolen tapestries. They were woven in Flanders in 1400s and lost to public accounting until the early 19th century. Novelist George Sand brought public attention to the tapestries in her works.

I have had framed postcards of these tapestries hanging in my home for twenty years and it was a thrill to see the real things again! Ranier Marie-Rilke described them precisely:  

....there are six tapestries; come, let us pass slowly in front of them But first o all take a step back and look at them, all together. Are they not tranquil? There is little variety in them. See that blue, oval island in all of them, floating over the soft red background, which is filled with flowers and inhabited by small animals busy with their own activities. There only, in the last panel, the island rises a little, as if it had become lighter. There is always a figure, a woman, wearing different attires, but it is always the same lady. Sometimes, there is beside her a smaller figure, a maidservant, and there are always heraldic creatures: large ones, on the island, which are part of the action. To the left, a lion, and to the right, in light hues, the unicorn; they carry the same banner high above them; three silver moons rising on a blue band on a red field.

The tapestries came to the Cluny in varying stages of neglect and deterioration and have been subject to regular restoration efforts since 1882. 

TOUCH

Photo by John Phillips

 TASTE

Photo by John Phillips

 SMELL

HEARING

SIGHT

À Mon Seul Désir

Photo by John Phillips

Scholarship related to the tapestries has shifted over the years from research into the commissioner of the works and location of the weaving, to more recent concerns about the meaning of the tapestries as related to and personifying themes in medieval literature.

A special 'Swords: Uses, Myths, and Symbols' exhibit included swords from the 5th to the 15th centuries. Joyeuse, the sword of Charlemagne described in the Song of Roland as changing color thirty times a day, had been moved from its customary home in the Louvre for this exhibit. I am saddened to report that I saw no color-changing swordplay that day.  In truth, the sword identified as that of Charlemagne is really a composite of various bits from the 10th to 13th centuries. It was used as a coronation sword for Kings of France from 1270 to 1824.

Photo by John Phillips

Our last stop before leaving the Cluny was a visit to the sublime Flamboyant Gothic chapel. After the death of her husband Louis XII, Francis I kept Mary Tudor at the Cluny to assure that she was not pregnant, as a child would have threatened his succession. To be extra safe, he married her off here to her knight-in-shining-armor, Charles Brandon Duke of Suffolk and Viscount Lisle. We were also told that one of the former owners of the Cluny was a physician who used this chapel as a dissection room!

Photo by John Phillips

One piece in the Cluny collection that I can't remember seeing but which would have special relevance to our group was a Limoges reliquary of St. Thomas Becket, dating to 1190-1200. Becket relics were quickly distributed all over Europe following his martyrdom and canonization, and at least fifty surviving Limoges reliquaries of this type were created to house the new saint's relics. Eleanor was kept colossally busy in the last dozen or so years of her life, which is when this reliquary dates to, and I'm pretty sure she had better things to do than visit random Becket shrines. While I doubt she ever saw this particular reliquary, one never knows! It's certainly exemplary of the type that existed in her lifetime, and I'm sorry none of us saw it.

Photo from Wikipedia Commons

Next stop, lunch!  Then, the Louvre.