Basilica of the Annunciation, Nazareth

Also known as Basilica of the Annunciation, Nazareth Cathedral

Nazareth fell to Tancred in 1102 and was elevated to an archbishopric, and a first Crusader church was built over the Byzantine ruins above the traditional grotto of the Annunciation. Under Archbishop Letard II in the 1170s the Franks began an ambitious second basilica that aimed to rival anything being built in contemporary France. Work stopped abruptly when the kingdom collapsed at Hattin in 1187. Excavations in 1909 uncovered five carved Romanesque capitals — never installed — depicting scenes from the lives of the apostles with a quality that places them among the masterpieces of twelfth-century European sculpture; they are today on display at the modern basilica. Mamluk sultan Baybars razed the surviving Crusader structure in 1263; the site was rebuilt by the Franciscans in the eighteenth century and again as the present basilica in 1969.

Coordinates: 32.7022°, 35.2978°

Read more on Wikipedia: English article · עברית