St. Bavo's Cathedral, Ghent, 2024

St. Bavo's is a fine Gothic, the original site dating from the 10th century, the current building begun in the 13th, with the usual later Baroque interior. Not one of the great high Gothics, but a fine specimen nonetheless. Its chief claim to fame, of course, is the Ghent Altarpiece, properly known as The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, by Hubert and mostly Jan van Eyck, finished in 1432, the world's first oil painting. We'll get to that in the next post. For this visit to St. Bavo's I opted for the "augmented reality" tour, which takes place in the crypt but is mostly about the painting. Over the years, we've not had good luck with these AR things, but this one actually was decent, well worth the couple bucks extra. Plus we got to tarry a bit in the crypt, which is my favorite part of this church. Obviously, I have no pix from the AR, but took advantage of the opportunity to look at more of the crypt.

Approaching St. Bavo's

Nave view

Assorted relics: somebody's blood, allegedly; looks suspiciously
like the one in Bruges, maybe from the same Constantinople relics
shoppe

Helpful model and floor plan

Book of the Dead from St. Bavo's Abbey, 1406;
apparently doom scrolling is nothing new

Now in the crypt, much older, with its Romanesque
columns and capitals and clearly much older paintings 

International Gothic style, no?

Beautiful gold and silver plated reliquary for St. Macharius; unfortunately
does not specify whether it is the Macharius (Macarius) of Egypt, Macarius
of Alexandria, Macarius of Lower Egypt, or Macarius of Ghent; which
I leave for a homework assignment; the making of saints did not get
standardized, church-wide, until well into the Middle Ages, don't you
know; it was a largely local thing until then

Nice silver head on a platter; I'm going with St. John 
the Baptist

Van Eyck had painted nude Adam and Eve figures for the 
Altarpiece, but later authorities decided this was not fitting
for a church, and so had them re-done, clothed; the originals
are back with the Altarpiece now, as we'll see

Moving right along, we are back in the upstairs
church, having visited the Altarpiece and the chapel
for which it was originally done...this is Rubens'
altarpiece, St. Bavo Enters the Convent at Ghent (huh?);
the two ladies at the left, we thought, looked a bit like 
his wives

A bit of the elevation and (non-Medieval) windows

Choir

Altar

Side aisle

Reserve holy water

Organ

One of the more ornate pulpits we've seen

Back outside for the customary bronze model...sometimes done in
Braille, sometimes not