- & 
THE CATHEDRAL, ANTWERP. 
The Church of Notre Dame, or the Cathedral, is a most admirable piece of 
architecture, far surpassing any similar edifice in the Netherlands. The foundation 
of the choir was laid in the year 1124, at which time the church itself was also 
built, and dedicated by Burchard, Bishop of Cambray, as recorded in the following 
Latin verses— 
Undecies centum ductis, et sex quater annis 
Virginis a partu conciliante reum, 
Burchardus Preesul hac atria nec minus aram 
Sacravit, medium, quod tenet Ecclesia. 
The total length of the edifice is 500 feet; its breadth 240. It is said that it was 
one hundred years building. Only one of the towers however was completed, but 
this is of unrivalled beauty. Its height is differently stated at 420 and 470 feet. 
From the gallery, near the summit, there is a most splendid prospect of the sur 
rounding country, embracing the city, with its highly cultivated environs, and 
extending to Malines, Brussels, Louvain, and Ghent on the one hand, and on the 
other to the sea and the islands of Zealand. The late siege of the Citadel, has 
doubtless impaired the beauty of the nearer part of the prospect, the noble avenues 
of trees having been for the most cut down, the gardens desolated, and the fortress 
converted into a heap of ruins. 
There were formerly sixty-eight bells, some of them of extraordinary size. 
The Cathedral contained sixty-six chapels, enriched with marble columns, all 
different, and adorned with beautiful paintings. Great and irreparable damage was 
done to this magnificent edifice by a dreadful fire in 1533, which destroyed the 
fifty-seven altars, consumed the whole of the roof, and calcined many of the marble 
columns. The tower, which was already in flames, was saved by the heroic exer 
tions of the Burgomaster, Lancelot Ursel, who, at the hazard of his life, and 
encouraging the people by his promises and example, happily rescued this noble 
edifice from destruction. It was subsequently pillaged and devastated during the 
civil and religious wars. It still possesses some fine paintings, among which is the 
celebrated altar-piece by Rubens, restored to its original place by the intervention 
of the Duke of Wellington, after the battle of Waterloo. During the late unex 
pected bombardment the Cathedral was not injured; and when it was apprehended, 
that the siege of the Citadel by the French might cause the bombardment to be 
repeated, the magistrates took all possible precautions to secure the master-piece 
of their illustrious countryman. Happily the efficacy of these precautions was not 
put to the proof. The Church of Notre Dame, formerly collegiate, in the diocese 
of Cambray, was erected into a Cathedral, by Pope Paul IV. in 1559.