Cathe­drals facts

Oscar Niemeyer. In 1956, Juscelino Kubitschek, newly elected Brazilian president, visited Niemeyer: ‘I am going to build a new capital for this country and I want you to help me’. Niemeyer organized a competition for the lay-out of Brasília, the new capital, and the winner was the project of his old master and great friend, Lúcio Costa. Niemeyer would design the buildings, Lucio the plan of the city.

"Our lady". Notre Dame (Our Lady) is a French title for the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Notre Dame de Paris is the most famous church of this name, however there are many other churches called Notre Dame, including Notre Dame cathedral in Phnom Penh, Notre Dame d'Afrique in Algiers and Church of Notre Dame in New York City.

In Rouen. Beginning in the 1880s through the end of his life in 1926, Claude Monet worked on series paintings, in which a subject was depicted in varying light and weather conditions. The first and best known of these is a series of over 30 paintings of the Cathedral of Rouen. The estimated value of one painting is over $40 million.

In 1993. When the capital of Spain was transferred from Toledo to Madrid in 1561, the seat of the Church in Spain remained in Toledo and the new capital had no cathedral. Plans to build a cathedral in Madrid were discussed as early as the 16th century, but the cost of expanding and keeping the Empire came first. The construction of the church located just next to the Royal Palace began in 1878 and concluded in 1993.

Correggio was the foremost painter of the Parma school of the Italian Renaissance, who was responsible for some of the most vigorous and sensuous works of the 16th century. In his use of dynamic composition, illusionistic perspective and dramatic foreshortening, Correggio prefigured the Rococo art of the 18th century.