Natividad de la Virgen (Sotillo)
The Natividad de la Virgen church is one of the little-known Romanesque jewels in the old Castilian province of Segovia .
location
The church is located at an altitude of about 970 meters above sea level. d. M. in the municipality of Sotillo in the autonomous community of Castile-León, which has only about 35 inhabitants . The distance to the southwestern city of Segovia is about 63 kilometers (driving distance); the lovely town of Sepúlveda is about 14 kilometers to the north-west.
Building history
The construction of the church comes from the 12th century. However, no information is available about the builders (client, architect, craftsman). In view of the rich structural features, it is now hard to imagine that it was a simple village parish church.
architecture
- tower
The lower part of the bell tower on the north side is structured by blind arcades. The upper part, visually separated by a surrounding cornice at the level of the eaves of the apse, shows house masonry only in the corners - the actual wall surfaces consist of largely unworked rubble and are therefore plastered.
- apse
The apse of the small church, built entirely from precisely hewn stones, is divided by semi - columns; the three narrow window openings are accompanied by small pillars and are recessed into the masonry. Below the eaves runs a figuratively designed and both decorative and disastrous ( apotropaic ) console frieze , which is accompanied by metope fields in relief ; Particularly noteworthy is a hunting scene consisting of several individual fields.
- portal
The portal of the church is on the otherwise plastered south side of the nave . It is a simple archivolt portal whose bead-shaped profiled arch is framed on the outside by a wavy jagged blind arch . The inner arch is - after Islamic or Mozarabic models - jagged nine times and decorated with ten small flower rosettes.
Web links
- Iglesia de la Natividad de la Virgen - Photo
- Iglesia de la Natividad de la Virgen - Photos
- Iglesia de la Natividad de la Virgen - photo + information (Spanish)
Coordinates: 41 ° 15 ′ 29 " N , 3 ° 38 ′ 11" W.