Angels of Paris

Look up, in Paris, and the city is full of angels. Hovering above doorways, hiding in plain sight, they’re easy to miss, but Rosemary Flannery’s delightful new book will guide you to the best of them.

Arranged by arrondissement, Angels of Paris introduces readers to a host of heavenly creatures—angelots or baby angels and renommées, who “symbolize renown and fame”; in civic architecture, putti (chubby babies), génies (adults personifying abstract ideas) and amours (“almost anything in between”).

Flannery finds them all over Paris and gracefully weaves together each one’s story with the city’s history, architecture and plenty of anecdotes. Even Benjamin Franklin makes a cameo appearance, with the muscular little angels who hoist lightning rods on the roof of the Théatre du Châtelet.

Some are smiling guardian angels, as the author’s photographs illustrate, but not all: Saint Michel brandishes a sword and tramples a cowering Satan; an Angel of Death, accompanied by the Grim Reaper, points ominously to the hours of a sundial. The most surprising angels cavort on the facade of a former railroad building: in front of several finely drawn steam engines, one hauls a sack of coal over his shoulder while another holds the lever of a track-switching device. An unusual—and uplifting—way to look at Paris.

Angels of Paris: An Architectural Tour through the History of Paris. By Rosemary Flannery. The Little Bookroom, 2012. 228 pages. $18.95.

 

Originally published in the December 2012 issue of France Today