Rose Window in Tournai Cathedral

Tournai is a city in Belgium, with a very special cathedral. It has five towers, and even more special, the church has 2 building styles, a romanesque nave and a gothic choir. Unfortunately the gothic choir is in a bad state. This Post focusses on the rose window at the end of the (romanesque) nave. the full window looks like this:

The rose window has a central window with 16 leaves around. each containing an ‘angel’, a sign of the zodiac/season and a king/prophet/figure from the old testament. The central window contains Mary presenting Jesus as ruler (with an orb) flanked by the alpha and omega (beginning and end)

around this, there are 16 angels

The second circle contains the signs of the zodiac, which is actually quite a common occurance in the stained glass of medieval cathedrals (many of the great cathedrals in France will contain them somewhere).

as there are 16 images and only 12 signs of the zodiac 4 images representing the seasons are added. beginning with the one on top on the right side of the central line going clockwise. the first four are winter (warming at a fire), Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces

next is Spring (picking flowers), Aries, Taurus, Libra

continuing on, there is Summer (taking in harvest), Cancer, Leo and Virgo

Completing the circle, is fall (harvesting the wine), Gemini, Scorpio and Sagittarius

The outer circle contains old testament figures, again going clockwise.

the first four (upper right) are Salomon (the king), and the prophets Micha, Joel and Zachary

next in the lower right are the prophests Haggai, Jonas, Habakuk and Ezechiel

Next are Jesse, the prophet Maleachi, Mozes and the prohet Sephanja (from bottom to right)

From right to top are the prophets Jeremiah, Daniel, Isaiah and Amos

just to sum it up, the complete rose window once more:

All photographs by me and copyrighted, taken on May 10th 2025