The Biblical quest of Jerusalem is most exemplified in the Apocalyptic narratives surrounding cathedral walls. Secret numbers like the cubic square of the predestined city are deemed enclosed by the floor plans of the Gothic cathedrals. For instance, in Amiens cathedral, the sanctuary square is considered 144 royal square foot, as that of Jerusalem in Revelation: "The angel measured the wall using human measurement, and it was 144 cubits thick." (Camille 1996, pg. 12). This “applied theology” has parallels in Augustinian aesthetics of transforming the Jewish Tabernacle into the House of God, in which Abbot Suger may have endorsed on the signs and spectacle of the Gothic churches a mode of prayer long epitomized by the metaphoric cornerstone of Jerusalem. During the time of Charlemagne, Christian crusaders devised a mission to capture the Holy Land for the greater good of conversion. It was told that desirous of holy relics, Charlemagne was awarded by the emperor of Constantinople the Crown of Thorns, the shroud of Christ, the Virgin’s shift, and the hand of Simeon for delivering the Holy Sepulchre from the Holy Land. (Mâle 1978, loc. 3210) The Patriarch of Jerusalem also gifted him a fragment of the True Cross. The medieval mason and builder would have been acquainted with the mystical revelation of eschatological Jerusalem who is the foundation of Heaven on earth. This was not new, however, since tradition of church plans to span and face the same dimensions ascribed to Jerusalem had started since Romanesque architecture, such as that at St. Ravenna (Stalley 2007, pg. 73). The Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, as the greatest martyrium, was often made model formula over its many reconstructions as its measurements were collected to plan dimensions and direction of new churches to encourage a greater devotion to the spirit of pilgrimage. The Anastasis Rotunda inspired the baptistery at Pisa (Stalley 2007, pg. 77-78) so much so that it was considered a microcosm of Jerusalem.
To monks such as St. Bernard and Abbot Suger, an inherent geometry that is the power of the Creator of the universe is diffused in the logic of the sound of music and the light of heaven, following a tradition of St. Augustine. For St. Augustine, such experience of ecstatic salvation is understood through the idea of the “tabernaculum admirabile” meant to be “seen” or made metaphor through the locus of the church building that is the house of God, the “domus Dei” (Brush, 47). A task understood since the time of the temple of Solomon becoming Jerusalem, radiance and splendor with sapphire, emerald, and chrysoprase, were critical elements in the metaphorical Jerusalem as the building stone of the new Church. Jean Fouquet represents Jerusalem, conversely, as a Gothic cathedral (von Simon 1988, pg. 10). In the Gothic Age, signs that an object is of the physical world often prefigures Jerusalem with angels watching on the battlement (Mâle 1978, loc. 284). Dante, for example, in the “Divine Comedy” places Paradise on earth at the foot of Jerusalem where the tree that caused man’s fall is the tree that is hung Christ (Mâle 1978, loc. 443). Even in the depiction of the Virtues on these churches, Jerusalem was regarded as the victorious temple (Mâle 1978, loc. 534) as is often she is regarded as the historical place, the allegory of the Church Militant, the Christian soul, the Heavenly Home, and the symbolic name for Eden. (Mâle 1978, loc. 2515). Here prophecy and metaphors sparkle as a source of pre-eminence. However, to this pre-eminence, it is also signified that the Cross which Christ bore no longer faces Jerusalem but to Rome (Mâle 1978, loc. 3351). The adversary of Romanesque art, no other artistic style has been linked to so much political ideas and historical consequences. Viollet-le- duc observed, "that the French cathedral was born with the monarchical power." (von Simson 1988, pg. 62).