Church of Our Lady (Copenhagen) - Architecture

Architecture

The building measures 83 m in length and 33 m in width. The interior of the nave is 60 m long and over 25 m from floor to ceiling. With all galleries open, the church can seat more than 1100 people. The tower is 60 m high and houses the four church bells (Stormklokken weighs 4 tons and is the largest bell in Denmark. The smallest bell in the tower, used at morning service among other occasions, is the oldest bell in the country, dating from 1490 and taken from Antvorskov Klosterkirke).

The pediment is decorated with bronzes of Jesus Christ and the Apostles. The interior is likewise decorated with the twelve apostles (one in front of each of the piers of the central nave), the Risen Christ displaying the wounds in his body (in a niche above the altar) and in front of the altar the baptismal fount in the form of an angel holding a large scallop shell, all in Italian carrara marble. All of these sculptures were completed in Rome by the famous Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen.

In the aisles, a bronze bust of Bertel Thorvaldsen, modelled by Herman Wilhelm Bissen, is on display along with many portraits of bishops and deans.

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