Church family from Terrassa
The Terrassa family of churches in the Spanish city of Terrassa , an industrial city north of Barcelona in the province of the same name in the autonomous region of Catalonia , includes the churches of Santa Maria, Sant Pere and Sant Miquel. The three churches were built in pre-Romanesque times and belonged to the Egara bishopric . The Church of Santa Maria, consecrated to the Mother of God , stands on the site of the early Christian cathedral , while the Church of Sant Pere, consecrated to the Apostle Peter , is still used today as a parish church. The church of Sant Miquel is dedicated to the Archangel Michael . It originally served as an episcopal burial place and was probably only later converted into a baptistery. Medieval paintings dating from the 9th to the 11th centuries have been preserved in all three churches. 1931, located in the upper town of Terrassa at the confluence of the rivers and Villparadís Moner was church family to Monument ( Bien de Interés Cultural explained).
history
The Egara diocese was founded around the year 450. It lasted until the Moorish conquest of the Iberian Peninsula at the beginning of the 8th century. After the Reconquista , it was not rebuilt but integrated into the Diocese of Barcelona . It was not until 2004 that Pope John Paul II re- created the Diocese of Terrassa and made it subordinate to the diocese of Barcelona, which had been raised to the status of an archbishopric . The name Egara continues in the titular bishopric created in 1969 .
Since late antiquity , the three-church system was common in episcopal cities. Valencia already had a group of three churches in Visigothic times, and such an ensemble is documented for the Catalan cities of Vic and La Seu d'Urgell in the 10th and 11th centuries. Here too, the churches were consecrated to Mary, Peter and Michael.
It is not clear whether the surviving buildings in Terrassa were built under Visigothic rule or whether they were built in the 9th century, after the Reconquista. The first written records of the Terrassa churches come from the 10th century. During the campaigns of Almansor (938-1002) and his son Abd al-Malik, the churches of Santa Maria and Sant Pere were probably partially destroyed, the naves were then rebuilt in the Romanesque style. In 1112, Augustinian Canons from Sant Adrià de Besòs took over the church of Santa Maria and rededicated it. They used the church until the monastery was closed at the end of the 16th century.
architecture
All three churches are built from small house stones, which are arranged in regular rows and connected with mortar. This type of wall connection using the technique of opus vittatum had been in use since the Roman Empire and experienced a renaissance in western France in the 9th and 10th centuries . The corners of the buildings are reinforced by large cuboids for which spolia was used.
Santa Maria Church
The church of Santa Maria, the former bishopric, is built on the plan of a Latin cross . The original cathedral had three naves. The current single-nave nave and transept date from the Romanesque period, while the apse , which is rectangular on the outside and has a horseshoe-shaped floor plan on the inside, is dated to pre-Romanesque times. A crypt and a baptistery were uncovered under the nave of today's church .
Paintings of the apse
The heavily faded paintings of the apse of Santa Maria were exposed under Gothic overpainting in 1937 . The paintings are dated to the pre-Romanesque period and are made using the fresco technique. For the colors, especially in reddish and reddish-brown tones, soot and earth were mixed with oily solutions. The center of the dome occupies an octagon made up of two squares one on top of the other. In the two outer circles are many people with a halo depicted, including Christ in the midst of the apostles . Rings can be seen at the edge zone.
Paintings in the south transept
The apse of the south transept is painted in the late 12th century. The subject of the depiction is the martyrdom of Thomas Becket , Archbishop of Canterbury , whose veneration spread in Egara at the end of the 12th century. The dome shows a pantocrator image , which is surrounded by a mandorla, next to which two people stand.
Sant Miquel Church
The church of Sant Miquel is a square building, which is supported by eight spoli columns with stilted arches and divided into nine compartments. The central square is covered by a dome, the compartments of the four main axes bear groin vaults . The compartments of the diagonals, like the horseshoe-shaped apse adjoining to the east, are vaulted by domes made of tuff . Under the apse, which is encased in polygonal form on the outside, there is a three-corner crypt dedicated to St. Celedonius of Calahorra (sometimes regarded as the son of St. Marcellus of Tangier ) was consecrated.
The central compartment basin is a 20th century addition, under which an excavation carried out in 1906 found an older, square water basin. Whether this is to be regarded as an early medieval baptismal font remains questionable, since baptisteries were usually dedicated to John the Baptist and not to the Archangel Michael. For this reason it is assumed that the church of Sant Miquel in Terrassa, like the Michael church of the church family of Vic, originally served as an episcopal church of the Holy Sepulcher and was only later converted into a baptistery .
Paintings of the apse
In the center of the apse dome the remains of a representation of Christ with a mandorla and a cross nimbus can still be seen. At the lower edge of the picture sit figures with halos, dressed in long robes and sandals. All figures bring their hands to their mouths, which can perhaps be interpreted as a sign of contemplation or silence. The sides are bordered by gathered curtains and in the middle there are five circles, the middle one bearing the Christ monogram .
Sant Pere Church
The originally three-aisled basilica now has only one nave, which is covered by a barrel vault. The choir head and the transept, laid out as a three-conch choir , date from pre-Romanesque times . In front of the central apse is a stone retable with paintings from the pre-Romanesque period. Six round-arched blind arcades resting on central columns with capitals are cut into this reredos .
Paintings on the reredos wall
In the niches of the two upper arcades there is a cross-bearing figure, presumably Jesus, and a saint, perhaps Peter, the patron saint of the church. The evangelists are represented in the lower four niches , in the two outer niches are Matthew and John , in the inner niches Luke and Mark are represented by their symbols , bull and lion. The arcade spandrels are decorated with winged angels. Other people can be seen in the lower zone, separated by a wooden beam.
See also
literature
- Achim Arbeiter, Sabine Noack-Haley: Christian monuments of the early Middle Ages from the 8th to the 11th century . Mainz 1999, ISBN 3-8053-2312-3 , pp. 384-394.
- Jaime Cobreros: Guía del Prerrománico en España . Madrid 2006, ISBN 84-9776-215-0 , pp. 197-201.
- Jaime Cobreros: Las Rutas del Románico en España . Vol. II, Madrid 2004, ISBN 84-9776-112-X , pp. 75-76.
- Joan Ainaud de Lasarte: Catalogne novels . 3rd edition, La Pierre-qui-Vire (Zodiaque) 1994, ISBN 2-7369-0208-4 , p. 312.
Web links
- Església de Sant Pere. In: Inventory of the historical buildings. Generalitat de Catalunya, accessed May 14, 2013 (Catalan).
- Església de Santa Maria. In: Inventory of the historical buildings. Generalitat de Catalunya, accessed May 14, 2013 (Catalan).
- Església de Sant Miquel. In: Inventory of the historical buildings. Generalitat de Catalunya, accessed May 14, 2013 (Catalan).
- Conjunto episcopal de Égara, Terrassa www.romanicocatalan.com (Spanish, accessed May 14, 2013)
- Conjunto monumental de Sant Pere de Terrassa (Seu d'Ègara) www.arteguias.com (Spanish, accessed May 14, 2013)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Bisbat de Tarrassa. Historia de la Diócesis ( Memento of the original dated August 31, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Obispado de Terrassa (Spanish, accessed May 14, 2014)
Coordinates: 41 ° 34 ′ 0.7 ″ N , 2 ° 1 ′ 7 ″ E