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Toulouse Cathedral: Overall view, irregular west front with Flamboyant portal to the right
It is the seat of the Archbishop of Toulouse. Toulouse was one of the pilgrimage sites on route to Santiago de Compostela. The cathedral of St Etienne was begun in 1077. The 11th-century building was replaced at the beginning of the 13th, but the cloister and monastic buildings, attested to in 1120, survived only to be vandalized in 1794 and then dismantled from 1812 to 1817; some of the sculpture and sculpted capitals of the cloister survive. These were inscribed with the name Gilabertus. Both the interior and exterior of the church are disconcerting because they are essentially composed of two incomplete churches (dated 1230 and 1272), one on a different axis. By 1445 a triforium had been added to the choir and a Flamboyant west portal had been inserted. There are 15 chapels.