Cathedral Tour

yeah, trying to hit the highlights of this one before I forget it all.
The Cathedral of St. Peter (Dom St. Peter or, in Regensburg often just "the Dom") is one of only 3 Classically Gothic cathedrals outside of France . The other two are in Cologne and Prague. It was worked on from the 1270 until the 19th century. 60% of its original stained glass windows are intact. Ludwig funded the cathedral spires, another celebration of his favorite things about Germany and his jubilant spending of money.
You probably know that Gothic cathedrals were built to represent the jeweled and white walls of heaven. The Dom has representations of stained glass from the toweled through 19th centuries, and covers most of the stories of the bible and lives of choice saints. One also shows a blue donkey (Mary's riding it to Egypt), the long-sought secret of many-a-scavenger hunt.
Besides the sheer size of the cathedral, another reason it took so long to build was the lack of funds. Most of it was built by private donations (Regensburg's a trade city, remember?). At some point Bavaria became a Lutheran state, leaving the Catholics with significantly less income.
The outside is equally diverse, its western facade going through most of the stages of art history.
On an amusing note, not only do St. George and St. Martin guard the door to the Cathedral, Satan and his Grandmother also hide in the corners.
All in all, the Dom is one of the most studied cathedrals in the world. It's been taken apart nearly block by block. There have been thousands of artisans identified with the church, including over a thousand stone masons identified by their mason's marks.
Adjacent to the cathedral is a small monastery that was converted into a tomb for the various bishops and wealthy donors. In the heart of it is a private sanitary that was once covered in 12th century frescos. No more, since a 1950's group decided to clean them off and accidently destroyed them.

On a personal note, I was thrilled to finally get a chance to poke around in here, and even more thrilled to learn that next week we get to climb the towers! Our tour guide will also be our teacher for the Hon 164 (Fine Arts, now declared "art history") class, which means we definitely have an expert guide to the art history here. It'll be great, but I think I'm in for a challange.

Gah, there's so much more, but I'm out of time. Dinner's ready, and I have to study. I'll try and give you more information another time. Other than that, enjoy the new pics.