Nuestra Señora de la Peña basilica
The Basilica Nuestra Señora de la Peña ( German Our Lady of the Rock ) is a pilgrimage church above the Spanish Pyrenees community Graus in the province of Huesca in the autonomous community of Aragon . The current church complex was built in the middle of the 16th century on top of an earlier Romanesque building. This consists of a church, a few houses, an inner courtyard and a pilgrims' hospital with a viewpoint from the cloister. The church of the Diocese of Barbastro-Monzón , which has been protected as a cultural monument since 1975 , was the seventh Spanish church to receive the rank of minor basilica in 1810 .
history
basilica
On the walls of the current basilica are the remains of the original Romanesque church of Sancta María de Villa, mentioned in a document from 1186. This church, like the entire city of Graus, was connected to the monastery of San Victorián through a gift from King Sancho I , who conquered the place from the Muslims during the Reconquista .
At the end of the 15th century, the Romanesque church was in need of repair. In 1538, the clergy and council of Graus intended to construct a new building that would have the rank of basilica thanks to the steps taken by the Lateran Basilica in Rome. The year 1543 on the front of the church attests to the good construction progress. However, construction was halted for several years, probably due to a lack of funds.
In 1555, Don Joan de Pomar, Abbot of the Monastery of San Victorián, signed a contract with the stonemason Jaques de Anduxes to finish the church; it is not known why the following year the clergy and the city of Graus agreed that this treaty should pass into the hands of Joan Tellet. He built the portico of the church, the second section of the church and a few steps connecting the portico to the courtyard, and he left his signature on the portico's frieze. There he made a door for the chapel of San Juan de Letrán.
In 1581 the church was separated from the monastery of San Victorián and made dependent on the city administration and the diocese of Barbastro. Then the walls of the chapel of San Juan de Letran were built, the facade of which had been made a few years earlier. The church was awarded the status of a minor basilica by the Pope in 1810 as the first Spanish church .
hospital
The construction of a hospital and additional rooms was planned from the beginning of the work. Its construction is later than that of the church, since its structure is based on that of the church. We know that they existed as early as 1595 because of the news of the death of Don Miguel Cercito, Bishop of Barbastro, who died that year “in horror in the house of Our Lady of the Rock”. Perhaps he was the promoter of the work, because a document from 1607 quotes a certain "Fray Miguel" who built these houses.
The lookout point and the archway above the square had a clear function as a cloister. There are inscriptions in Greek that invite meditation: some refer to the Letter to the Colossians, others to the inscriptions of the Apollo sanctuary in Delphi .
Church fire of 1936
During the Spanish Civil War , the church, along with others, was substantially destroyed by fire. The roofs and the vault of the second section of the nave collapsed, the altarpieces burned, only the altarpiece in the chapel of San Juan de Letrán could be saved. The bust and bones of Pedro Cedrán were also lost at that time. A first restoration was planned from 1940. The architect Teodoro Ríos was commissioned to reconstruct the vaults and roofs. Francisco Asarta Ferraz carried out further measures in 1974 with regard to the former hospital and the cloister.
description
The single-nave church consists of two bays and a retracted choir, which is covered with a hexagonal vault, above which the steeple rises. The yoke on the choir side is designed with an elaborate star vault with animal ceron ribs , which is lost in the second yoke.
Remains of the Romanesque building are particularly evident on the underside of the gospel wall, where there is a small door and smaller ashlar stones at the top.
The Romanesque-style high altar with two sides was paid for by Esteban de Esmir, Bishop of Huesca between 1641 and 1654. His grave sculpture is still in the window of the choir and prays to a lost altarpiece.
The entrance door of the Renaissance facade has a semicircular arch and rich decoration and is framed by columns connected by an entablature. In front of it the portico opens on Corinthian columns . The frieze bears the signature of Joan Tellet on two cartouches next to a small corbel. Above the cornice and under the keystone of the semicircular arches, the bases of three statues that were destroyed in the civil war have been preserved. On the left wall of the portico is the entrance to the Chapel of San Juan de Letrán and a staircase that connects the portico with the courtyard.
Web links
- Asociación Amigos de la Peña (Spanish)
details
- ^ Archivo Diocesan de Barbastro, carp. 870, leg. SVict, f. 18v / 19r. Copia del siglo XVIII en papel. Latin. B. Véase MUR LAENCUENTRA, Jorge: Septembris. Historia y Vida cotidiana en Graus entre los siglos XI y XV . y CD adjunto: Colección documental de Graus (1050-1450) Ed. Ayuntamiento de Graus.
- ↑ History of the basilica (Spanish)
- ↑ Carlos Perrela Larrosa: El piedrapiquero Joan Tellet, una aproximación a su obra y su personalidad artística. En Actas del V Coloquio de Arte Aragonés. Diputación General de Aragón, Zaragoza, 1989.
- ↑ Basílica de Santa María de la Peña on gcatholic.org
- ↑ Saturnino López Novoa: Historia de la muy noble y muy leal ciudad de Barbastro y descripción geográfico-histórica de su Diócesis (2 vols), Barcelona, Pablo Riera, 1861, p. 256.
- ↑ Basílica de Nuestra Señora de la Peña (Graus, HUESCA) on patrimonioculturaldearagon.es (Spanish)
Coordinates: 42 ° 11 '14.3 " N , 0 ° 20' 4.7" E