Le Puy Cathedral, also called Notre-Dame, stands in Le Puy-en-Velay in the Auvergne. It was begun in the eleventh century and completed in the thirteenth, with most construction in the first half of the twelfth. The style is Romanesque, with later Gothic pointed arches. A monumental stairway of sixty steps leads from the street to the west porch, and sixty more lead to the nave.
The west front is built of white sandstone and dark volcanic stone, and the doors are cedar wood. The seven-story bell tower is about 184 feet (56 meters) high. The church also has an octagonal lantern tower, cupolas, a four-gallery cloister and an eleventh-century baptistery.
An earthquake damaged it in 1427. A restoration began in 1844, directed by Aymond Gilbert Mallay under Viollet-le-Duc's supervision. UNESCO listed the cathedral in 1998 as part of the Routes of Santiago de Compostela in France.
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