Notre-Dame de Dijon stands at Place Notre-Dame, near the Palace of the Dukes of Burgundy. It is a Gothic church regarded as a thirteenth-century masterpiece. Construction began around 1230 on the site of a Romanesque chapel rebuilt around 1150. An unknown architect used new techniques that put the weight of the framing and roof on pillars rather than flying buttresses. The plan is a Latin cross with a three-level interior and a lantern tower at the crossing. Eugène Viollet-le-Duc called it a masterpiece of reason.
The western facade is 28.6 meters high and has 51 grotesques. The Jacquemart clock automaton was taken from Kortrijk after 1382 and installed in 1383. A wooden statue of the Virgin from the eleventh or twelfth century stands inside.
Jean Charles Laisné restored the church from 1865 to 1884. It became a Monument Historique in 1840.
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