Saint-Sulpice’s broad façade and unfinished-looking towers frame one of Paris’s largest church interiors. Built over centuries, the church gathers architectural styles, Delacroix murals, a monumental organ, and a scientific gnomon beneath a single roof.
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A brass line crossing the floor points to a feature that is easy to miss in such a vast church. Saint-Sulpice’s gnomon is a precision instrument: sunlight entering through an opening tracks along the meridian line and once helped astronomers establish dates such as the equinox.
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UpgradeQuick facts
- The current church’s first stone was laid in 1646 by Anne of Austria.
- Its foundations reach back to the twelfth century.
- The gnomon’s brass meridian line was used for astronomical observations.
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