New York: St. Patrick’s Cathedral Stained Glass Tour｜United States

Discover St. Patrick’s Cathedral in an entirely new way on a guided experience devoted to the extraordinary stained-glass windows of America’s great cathedral. Learn how to read stained glass and understand its visual language.

Learn the basic “grammar” of stained glass: how to determine the correct reading order, recognize religious symbols and attributes, interpret colors and halos, read the Latin banderoles beneath the scenes, and even find the small signatures left behind by the artists who created the windows.

Then put those skills to work as you explore some of St. Patrick’s Cathedral’s most remarkable stained glass. Begin with the monumental Life of St. Patrick, an 18-scene window that tells the story of the cathedral’s patron saint. Cross the cathedral to the Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary, created by Nicolas Lorin of Chartres, and discover scenes including the Annunciation, Joseph’s Dream, the Presentation, the Flight into Egypt, the Death of the Virgin, and the Assumption.

Examine the Founders Window, where the story of the cathedral itself is preserved in glass—including the name of architect James Renwick and the signature of the French glazier who created it. Study the Nativity Window, where the normal rules suddenly change and a Latin inscription travels across three lancets to form a single message.

One of the tour’s extraordinary moments comes at the Great Rose Window, designed by Charles J. Connick of Boston. Measuring 26 feet across and filled predominantly with brilliant blue and ruby glass, the Rose Window is experienced from a remarkable perspective behind the High Altar, where the carved trumpeting angel of the organ case and the stained glass were composed to be seen together.

Continue into the Lady Chapel, whose windows were created by English artist Paul Vincent Woodroffe over an 18-year period between 1912 and 1930. Finally, go beyond the areas normally seen by visitors and descend one flight below the cathedral floor into the Sacristy and Sacristy Chapel. The vaulted marble sacristy is where clergy vest, and the chapel beyond contains a dramatically different form of stained glass—simple geometric leaded glass without saints, narrative scenes or inscriptions.

By the end of the experience, the windows you might once have seen simply as beautiful color begin to reveal themselves as stories.