Notre-Dame Basilica of Montreal Toronto doesn’t have anything this awe-inspiring beautiful. It’s a shame. I’ve never seen anything so spectacular in my life. I cried, it was so moving. My pictures don’t do it justice and it’s something that everyone needs to see. When it was founded in 1642, the village, then known as Ville-Marie, had its first wooden chapel inside the palisade at Pointe-à-Callière, today the site of Montreal’s major archaeological museum. Dedicated to Our Lady the Blessed Virgin Notre Dame the small original chapel was operated at first by the Jesuits. Then came the Sulpician Fathers, who in 1657 undertook construction of a larger church. The Sulpician Fransois Dollier de Casson was its architect, and the present-day Notre-Dame Street served as the original site. Its construction, in Baroque style was completed between 1672 and 1683. By 1800, Dollier’s church had become too small, and the Fabrique decided to build the church we know today. To design the new church, the building council engaged the services of the New York architect James O’Donnell, himself …