in France, built between 1499 and 1508, which inspired neo-Gothic revival in the 19th century French neo-Gothic had its roots in the French
medieval Gothic architecture, where it was created in the 12th century. Gothic architecture was sometimes known during the medieval period as the "Opus Francigenum", (the "French Art"). French scholar
Alexandre de Laborde wrote in 1816 that "Gothic architecture has beauties of its own", which marked the beginning of the Gothic Revival in France. Starting in 1828, Alexandre Brogniart, the director of the
Sèvres porcelain manufactory, produced fired enamel paintings on large panes of plate glass, for
King Louis-Philippe's
Chapelle royale de Dreux, an important early French commission in Gothic taste, preceded mainly by some Gothic features in a few
jardins paysagers. completed in 1857, Paris The French Gothic Revival was set on more sound intellectual footings by a pioneer,
Arcisse de Caumont, who founded the Societé des Antiquaires de Normandie at a time when
antiquaire still meant a connoisseur of antiquities, and who published his great work on architecture in French Normandy in 1830. The following year
Victor Hugo's historical romance novel
The Hunchback of Notre-Dame appeared, in which the great
Gothic cathedral of Paris was at once a setting and a protagonist in a hugely popular work of fiction. Hugo intended his book to awaken a concern for the surviving Gothic architecture left in Europe, however, rather than to initiate a craze for neo-Gothic in contemporary life. In the same year that
Notre-Dame de Paris appeared, the new restored
Bourbon monarchy established an office in the Royal French Government of Inspector-General of Ancient Monuments, a post which was filled in 1833 by
Prosper Mérimée, who became the secretary of a new Commission des Monuments Historiques in 1837. This was the Commission that instructed
Eugène Viollet-le-Duc to report on the condition of the
Abbey of Vézelay in 1840. Following this, Viollet le Duc set out to restore most of the symbolic buildings in France including Notre Dame de Paris, Vézelay,
Carcassonne,
Roquetaillade castle,
Mont-Saint-Michel Abbey on its peaked coastal island,
Pierrefonds, and the
Palais des Papes in
Avignon. When France's first prominent neo-Gothic church was built, the
Basilica of Saint-Clotilde, Paris, begun in 1846 and consecrated in 1857, the architect chosen was of German extraction,
Franz Christian Gau, (1790–1853); the design was significantly modified by Gau's assistant,
Théodore Ballu, in the later stages, to produce the pair of
flèches that crown the west end. around 1900 saw a resurgence of church building across Lithuania, such as St John the Apostle in
Švėkšna. In Germany, there was a renewal of interest in the completion of
Cologne Cathedral. Begun in 1248, it was still unfinished at the time of the revival. The 1820s "Romantic" movement brought a new appreciation of the building, and construction work began once more in 1842, marking a German return for Gothic architecture.
St. Vitus Cathedral in
Prague, begun in 1344, was also completed in the mid-19th and early 20th centuries. The importance of the Cologne completion project in German-speaking lands has been explored by Michael J. Lewis,
"The Politics of the German Gothic Revival: August Reichensperger". Reichensperger was himself in no doubt as to the cathedral's central position in Germanic culture; "Cologne Cathedral is German to the core, it is a national monument in the fullest sense of the word, and probably the most splendid monument to be handed down to us from the past". Because of
Romantic nationalism in the early 19th century, the Germans, French and English all claimed the original Gothic architecture of the 12th century era as originating in their own country. The English boldly coined the term "Early English" for "Gothic", a term that implied Gothic architecture was an English creation. In his 1832 edition of
Notre Dame de Paris, author Victor Hugo said "Let us inspire in the nation, if it is possible, love for the national architecture", implying that "Gothic" is France's national heritage. In Germany, with the completion of Cologne Cathedral in the 1880s, at the time its summit was the world's tallest building, the cathedral was seen as the height of Gothic architecture. Other major completions of Gothic cathedrals were of
Regensburger Dom (with twin
spires completed from 1869 to 1872),
Ulm Münster (with a 161-meter tower from 1890) and
St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague (1844–1929). , finally completed in 1880 although construction began in 1248 In Belgium, a 15th-century church in
Ostend burned down in 1896. King
Leopold II funded its replacement, the
Saint Peter's and Saint Paul's Church, a cathedral-scale design which drew inspiration from the neo-Gothic
Votive Church in
Vienna and Cologne Cathedral. In
Mechelen, the largely unfinished building drawn in 1526 as the seat of the
Great Council of The Netherlands, was not actually built until the early 20th century, although it closely followed
Rombout II Keldermans's
Brabantine Gothic design, and became the 'new' north wing of the City Hall. In
Florence, the
Duomo's temporary façade erected for the Medici-House of Lorraine nuptials in 1588–1589, was dismantled, and the west end of the cathedral stood bare again until 1864, when a competition was held to design a new façade suitable to
Arnolfo di Cambio's original structure and the fine
campanile next to it. This competition was won by
Emilio De Fabris, and so work on his polychrome design and panels of
mosaic was begun in 1876 and completed by 1887, creating the Neo-Gothic western façade. Eastern Europe also saw much Revival construction; in addition to the
Hungarian Parliament Building in Budapest, the
Bulgarian National Revival saw the introduction of Gothic Revival elements into its vernacular ecclesiastical and residential architecture. The largest project of the Slavine School is the
Lopushna Monastery cathedral (1850–1853), though later churches such as
Saint George's Church, Gavril Genovo display more prominent vernacular Gothic Revival features. from the
Ottawa River, including
Gothic Revival library at rear, built between 1859 and 1876 In Scotland, while a similar Gothic style to that used further south in England was adopted by figures including
Frederick Thomas Pilkington (1832–1898) in secular architecture it was marked by the re-adoption of the
Scots baronial style. Important for the adoption of the style in the early 19th century was Abbotsford, which became a model for the modern revival of the baronial style. Common features borrowed from 16th- and 17th-century houses included
battlemented gateways,
crow-stepped gables, pointed
turrets and
machicolations. The style was popular across Scotland and was applied to many relatively modest dwellings by architects such as
William Burn (1789–1870),
David Bryce (1803–1876),
Edward Blore (1787–1879),
Edward Calvert () and
Robert Stodart Lorimer (1864–1929) and in urban contexts, including the building of
Cockburn Street in Edinburgh (from the 1850s) as well as the National
Wallace Monument at Stirling (1859–1869). The reconstruction of
Balmoral Castle as a baronial palace and its adoption as a royal retreat from 1855 to 1858 confirmed the popularity of the style. In the United States, the first "Gothic stile" church (as opposed to churches with Gothic elements) was
Trinity Church on the Green, New Haven, Connecticut. It was designed by
Ithiel Town between 1812 and 1814, while he was building his
Federalist-style Center Church, New Haven next to this radical new "Gothic-style" church. Its cornerstone was laid in 1814, and it was consecrated in 1816. It predates
St Luke's Church, Chelsea, often said to be the first Gothic-revival church in London. Though built of
trap rock stone with arched windows and doors, parts of its tower and its battlements were wood. Gothic buildings were subsequently erected by Episcopal congregations in Connecticut at St John's in Salisbury (1823), St John's in Kent (1823–1826) and St Andrew's in Marble Dale (1821–1823). These were followed by Town's design for
Christ Church Cathedral (Hartford, Connecticut) (1827), which incorporated Gothic elements such as buttresses into the fabric of the church.
St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Troy, New York, was constructed in 1827–1828 as an exact copy of Town's design for Trinity Church, New Haven, but using local stone; due to changes in the original, St. Paul's is closer to Town's original design than Trinity itself. In the 1830s, architects began to copy specific English Gothic and Gothic Revival Churches, and these "'mature Gothic Revival' buildings made the domestic Gothic style architecture which preceded it seem primitive and old-fashioned". There are many examples of
Gothic Revival architecture in Canada. The first major structure was
Notre-Dame Basilica in
Montreal, Quebec, which was designed in 1824. The capital,
Ottawa, Ontario, was predominantly a 19th-century creation in the Gothic Revival style. The
Parliament Hill buildings were the preeminent example, of which the original library survives today (after the rest was destroyed by fire in 1916). Their example was followed elsewhere in the city and outlying areas, showing how popular the Gothic Revival movement had become. the
Royal Canadian Mint, (1905–1908), and the
Connaught Building, (1913–1916),{{Cite web|url=https://www.pc.gc.ca/apps/dfhd/page_nhs_eng.aspx?id=454|title=Connaught Building National Historic Site of Canada|publisher=Parks Canada ==Gothic as a moral force==