Editing Tours (section)

===Cathedral===
{{Unreferenced section|date=May 2021}}
{{Main|Tours Cathedral}}
The Cathedral of Tours, dedicated to [[Gatianus of Tours|Saint Gatien]], its [[canonized]] first [[Bishop of Tours|bishop]], was begun about 1170 to replace the cathedral that was burnt out in 1166 during the dispute between [[Louis VII of France]] and [[Henry II of England]]. The lowermost stages of the western towers belong to the 12th century, but the rest of the west end is in the profusely detailed  15th-century [[Flamboyant Gothic]], which were completed just as the [[Renaissance]] was affecting the patrons who planned the [[châteaux]] of Touraine. The towers were being constructed at the same time as, for example, the [[Château de Chenonceau]].

When the 15th-century illuminator [[Jean Fouquet]] was set the task of illuminating [[Josephus]]'s ''Jewish Antiquities'', his depiction of [[Solomon's Temple]] was modelled on the nearly complete cathedral of Tours. The atmosphere of the Gothic cathedral close permeates [[Honoré de Balzac]]'s dark short novel of jealousy and provincial intrigues, ''[[Le Curé de Tours]]'' (''The Curate of Tours'') and his medieval story ''[[Maître Cornélius]]'' opens in the cathedral itself.