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The Cluny Museum: From the courtyard the whole building can be admired in all its beauty. It has two orders of cross windows and a tower containing a staircase ornamented with the emblems of St. James. The balustrade on the roof and the dormer windows are typical of the Flamboyant Gothic style. One of the most precious collections is the one of tapestries woven in the Loire and in Flanders in the 15th and 16th centuries. The Rotunda contains the famous series of tapestries of the Lady and the Unicorn, from the early 16th century. The Chapel, the ancient oratory of the abbots, is the most famous room. It has a single pillar in the center, from which the ribs of the vault fan out. Along the walls are a series of niches standing on consoles containing the statues of the d'Amboise family. In this chapel are the celebrated tapestries illustrating the Legend of St. Stephen, woven for the cathedral of Auxerre and completed toward 1490. In the next room is another great tapestry from the beginning of the 16th century depicting the Parable of the Prodigal Son. |