City: St. Louis, MO

Category: Tours & Attractions

Telephone: (314) 373-8242

Description: Archbishop John Glennon began building this beautiful cathedral in 1907. Its unique design combines architecture of the Romanesque style on the exterior with an amazingly beautiful Byzantine-style interior. This “New Cathedral,” as it’s called by the locals, contains the largest mosaic collection in the world; it was created by 20 different artists and covers 83,000 square feet. The installation, which contains almost 42 million pieces of glass tesserae in more than 7,000 colors, began in 1912 and was completed in 1988. In the narthex (vestibule) the mosaics depict the life of Saint Louis IX, King of France, and provide a preview of the beauty yet to be discovered in the main body of the church. The great center dome and the two smaller domes, together with the arches, reveal the story of the Catholic faith, from creation to the last judgment, in mosaics. Portraying scenes from both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, the mosaic works picture men and women of Judeo-Christian history as well as illustrate the more recent development of the Catholic Church in North America and particularly in St. Louis. The Mosaic Museum, on the lower level of the cathedral, provides additional information on the church’s construction and the installation of the artwork. The Cathedral Shop, located on the west side of the vestibule, stocks postcards and books that provide detailed information on the history of the church. Visitors are encouraged to tour the cathedral on their own whenever there is not a service or ceremony in progress.