Construction of Aachen Cathedral

Aachen Cathedral grew from the Palatine Chapel that Charlemagne had built beside his palace in Aachen, in what is now western Germany. Its octagonal core, designed by Odo of Metz and inspired in part by late Roman and Byzantine churches such as San Vitale in Ravenna, dates from the years around 800. Charlemagne was buried in the chapel, and from the 10th century until the 16th it was the church where German kings were crowned. A Gothic choir and later chapels were added over the centuries, and the marble throne and the shrine of Charlemagne remain its best-known treasures. In 1978 it became one of the first sites placed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

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