Talk:Vézelay Abbey

Can anyone explain the gibberish caption?

There's a caption under the photograph of the interior of the Cathedral, which reads "At 2:27 p.m. on the 23rd of June 1976 in the nave of the Vézelay basilica, Father Hugues Delautre o.f.m. made an appointment with the sun, at this precise instant in culmination above the earth, in order that its light manifests to him the secrete of the edifice." I confess that I can't make much sense of this. Can someone explain or edit this? Bricology (talk) 19:42, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Tympanum: wrong illustration

While the text describes the original tympanum which sits over the gate that's nowadays inside the church, the picture shows the tympanum of the outer entrance, which was added in the nineteenth century under supervision of Viollet Le Duc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.153.33.202 (talk) 07:16, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Whew, I thought it was I who was confused! Yes, there is an inner and and outer Western porch sculpture program, the latter a retrospective addition (possibly to protect the former)...Le Duc liked to ventriloquize/conterfeit the past (one of my teachers was on a team that identified his "additions-cum-repairs" to sculptures on the facade of Notre Dame de Paris.) The inner one is the original statement to be read as an entry path into the church. (I also agree with the following comment; I was there on St. John's Day a few years ago, and it is impressive, but it shouldn't reduce one's capacity for rational comment to gibberish...)96.233.98.79 (talk) 14:15, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

This does not sound very much like encyclopedia to me, especialy the 'God and his mystery' and the last sentence:

"To understand the meaning of this objective sign, Father Hugues Delautre refers to the 12th-century texts (Suger, Peter the Venerable, Honorius of Autun) and long inhabits the monument with the symbolic mentality of that time for which sense reveals itself from sensitive signs through the anagogical method (literally ascent towards the uncreated) where the look goes beyond the reality of the sign to reach the invisible, i.e. God and his mystery. Letting himself be progressively informed by the Vézelay light, he so concludes:" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.211.202.131 (talk) 14:22, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

The Western judgement portal at Vezelay is 19th century, but the narthex, although a little reworked by Viollet-le-Duc, is contemporary with the 12th century portal, meaning that it has always been inside the building. I believe that there was an original judgement portal on the West front that was destroyed during the French revolution, but there's no evidence as to its appearance. Mattymootoo (talk) 15:27, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

All the images used have shown the right tympanum for a good long time. Johnbod (talk) 17:00, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Abbey of La Madaleine or Abbey of La Madeleine?

I hesitate to correct La Madaleine into La Madeleine, since I do not know the reason for `La Madaleine', but it strikes me as incorrect. La Madaleine occurs twice on the page, one of which in the title and therefore the url-address, La Madeleine occurs at least 4 times in the English text. However, if I change La Madaleine into La Madeleine, the url should also change and I'm not sure how all this works. Anyone have an insight? Frank W (talk) 11:37, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Frank, your comment has spurred me on to doing something I had been planning to do for ages, that is to say, I have boldly, if not high-handedly, reverted the name of the article to what it was previously, which is to say, Vézelay Abbey. The name you queried was wrong in several ways, as you point out: it was mis-spelt ("Madeleine" is the right spelling), and it is not what the place is most commonly called in English (even if it is "La Madeleine" in French) which is where the article should be. As far as I'm aware that is Vézelay Abbey, and the previous re-naming was an error on the part of the editor that moved it. I'm sorry for not discussing it first. Please see WP:RM and open a discussion according to the instructions there if you would still like a full discussion on where this page should be, but wherever that is, it is most certainly not at its previous name. Jsmith1000 (talk) 13:16, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

What does "Vezelay was aplomb" mean?

("History" section, beginning of 5th paragraph.) In or out of context, it makes no sense. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.17.102.96 (talk) 13:57, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Potentially useful images

Hi

These images of the Abbey may be useful for this article,

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Thanks

John Cummings (talk) 14:56, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Vézelay Abbey/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

Needs reference citations and formal references. Badbilltucker 02:25, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Last edited at 02:25, 9 January 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 10:05, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

"Astronomical alignment" section

Hello all- Today I made some edits to the above-named section, during which I also changed the section heading from "Alignment with the sun" to the current one. This section was obviously translated essentially directly from the corresponding one in the fr.wp article (fr:Basilique_Sainte-Marie-Madeleine_de_Vézelay#Les_alignements_de_la_lumière_naturelle). For the moment, I decided to delete the second part of the section, which although interesting, is 1) somewhat unencyclopedic in style (like its French counterpart), 2) wanting of translation revision, and 3) unsourced. I think we can presume that the sourcing for the original French text, especially of the quote, would likely be one or both of the works by Hugues Delautre that are cited at the end of the first paragraph. I have scoured the internet, so far to no avail, trying to find those texts in French or English. So for the time being I've parked the text in the below quote frame. I've also included the initial translation revision I began on the pre-quotation part in the second quote frame:

To understand the meaning of this objective sign, Father Hugues Delautre refers to the 12th-century texts (Suger, Peter the Venerable, Honorius of Autun) that inhabit the monument with the symbolic mentality of that time, for which sense reveals itself from sensitive signs through the anagogical method (literally ascent towards the uncreated), and where one's gaze is invited to go beyond the reality of the sign to reach the invisible, i.e. God and his mystery. Letting himself be progressively informed by the Vézelay light, he so concludes:

Has not the builder, fascinated by the beauty of the universe which he recognises as the work of God, erected this vestibule to Heaven in imitation of God who created with order, measure and beauty? He could say as Solomon did when he constructed the Temple in Jerusalem exactly according to God's instructions: Thou hast given command to build a temple on Thy holy mountain.. a copy of the holy tent which Thou didst prepare from the beginning (Wisdom 9:8). The nave is the expression of the romanesque man's admiring submission to the divine plan testified to by all creation. The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament sheweth His handywork (Psalms 19:1).

Eric's partial translation:

In order to comprehend the significance of this astronomical revelation, Father Hugues Delautre consulted the 12th-century texts of Suger, Peter the Venerable, and Honorius of Autun; and he spent a long time experiencing the monument [i.e. the church] in the symbolic mentality of that era, in which meaning revealed itself through perceptible signs...

I also did a lot of work on the citations there, including adapting {{Cite magazine}} as best I could to accommodate what I think are articles put out by a now-defunct publisher/publication called Éditions Zodiaque, which I treated as a magazine for the purposes of the citation. I would welcome any help or comments. Happy to go on a fact-finding quest to Vézelay if the Wikimedia community wants to crowd-source my fare... Eric ^talk 21:37, 17 February 2024 (UTC)