On the Notre Dame in Paris, France, there is a series of niches containing statues that extend from one side of the façade to the other. How many statues are there and who do they represent?
So how did you do? Did you find the answer? Click on the image of the Notre Dame below and I'll give you the low-down.
Titled The Gallery of Kings, these statues are a horizontal version of The Tree of Jesse.
"The tree of who-da what-da??" you ask?
The Tree of Jesse is a horizontal genealogy of Christ’s lineage starting with Jesse of Bethlehem, father to King David (who was the ruler of Israel in the 11th century B.C.). It was inspired by Isaiah’s prophecy: “There will come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse and a flower will rise up out of his root.” The rod was interpreted as the Virgin Mary and the flower as Jesus. In the traditional representation of this theme, Jesse appears as the root, from which sprouts a tree supporting the Virgin and Child.
In 1793, during the French Revolution, orders were given to destroy superstitious signs, including church sculpture. Thus, the statues were beheaded by angry Frenchmen and toppled from the Notre Dame Cathedral. Due to their weight, the pavement in front of the cathedral collapsed.
So what happened to the old statues?
I'll let ETrav.com tell the tale: "A wealthy aristocrat by the name of La Kanal was so sickened by this destruction that in the middle of the night he carried the 21 heads back to his home and secretly buried them in his courtyard. There they remained until April 1, 1977.
"The property had been purchased by a bank in Paris and in the process of doing some renovations, the original heads of the statues of the kings were discovered buried in the courtyard. Nearly beside himself with excitement, the supervisor of the project immediately called the Bureau of French National Monuments to inform 
them of this incredible discovery. The Bureau laughed and dismissed it as an April Fools Day joke. One could hardly blame the Bureau for not taking the claim seriously. The supervisor's name was, coincidentally, Giscard d'Estaing, the same name as the President of France at the time. It took him a while to convince them that this was not an April Fools Day joke, that his real name was Giscard d'Estaing, and he was not pretending to be the president of France! The heads were duly collected and placed in the Cluny Museum."
In 1998, another head was also donated by Natexis Banque to the Musee de Cluny.
So who's who on the Notre Dame?
The statues you see today were re-created in the 19th century by Viollet le Duc. On the far left of the façade is Jesse, the father 
of King David. On the far right is Jesus Christ. Inbetween are kings and prophets. In no particular order, some of the prophets are Nahum, Samuel, Ezekiel, Zechariah, Moses, Isaiah, Habakkuk, Zephaniah (also known as Sophonias), Daniel, Balaam, Joel, Micah, Amos and Hosea. As with other portrayals of The Tree of Jesse, the kings portrayed on the façade are static, abstract figures with no historical links. However, the first and second in the lineage normally are David and Solomon.
E U R O P E Q & A :