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Notre-Dame de Paris rises on the Île de la Cité, the island where Paris was born. Bishop Maurice de Sully launched its construction in 1163, and over nearly two centuries masons, sculptors and glaziers shaped a model of French Gothic: flying buttresses, a carved western façade and three great rose windows. Kings prayed and married here, Napoleon crowned himself emperor in 1804, and Victor Hugo’s 1831 novel rescued the neglected building by turning the whole country’s attention to it. Architects Lassus and Viollet-le-Duc restored it in the 19th century and added the famous spire. On 15 April 2019 a fire destroyed the roof and spire, yet most of the stone vaults held. After five years of work by about 2,000 craftspeople, the cathedral reopened on 7 December 2024 and welcomed some 11 million visitors in its first year.