Saint Gatien Cathedral
The Cathedral of Saint Gatien is a Gothic style Roman Catholic cathedral, one of the most beautiful Gothic pieces of architecture in France. It was dedicated to Saint Gatien, its canonized first bishop. The construction started in 1170 in order to replace the remains of the earlier planed cathedral that was burnt out in 1166, during the quarrel between Louis VII of France and Henry II of England.
The lowermost stages of the west towers belong to the 12th century, but the rest of the west end is in the profusely detailed Flamboyant Gothic of the 15th century, completed just as the Renaissance was affecting less traditional patrons than bishops, in the pleasure chateau of Touraine. Inside the triple-nave church, building proceeded as always from the sanctuary and choir, with some of the finest 13th century stained glass, and worked pier by pier down the nave. The transept and east bays of the nave are 14th century and the cloister on the north is contemporary with the facade.
The windows in the chapels around the choir did not get any tracery. The first tracery appears in the triforium and the windows above and resembles the one in the Saint Chapelle in Paris. The site of the tomb of St. Martin is conserved in the crypt of the Basilica, built in the 19th century and designed by Victor Laloux.