San Juan Bautista (Orejana)
The vestibule ( galería porticada ) of the stand-alone church of San Juan Bautista in the municipality of Orejana is one of the gems of Romanesque architecture in northern Spain .
location
The church is located about 500 meters outside the hamlet of La Revilla at an altitude of about 1100 meters above sea level. d. M. in the municipality of Orejana in the province of Segovia in the autonomous region of Castile and León .
history
The church and its vestibule undoubtedly belong to the late 12th and early 13th centuries - hence the late Romanesque style. While the church is plastered - possibly because of the rubble stone material used in its construction - the vestibule consists of precisely hewn sandstones . Nothing is known about the client (s), the architect or the stonemasons.
In the 18th century the southern porch was closed and the church was expanded to three aisles plus a sacristy; this measure was reversed in the 1980s.
architecture
tower
It is questionable whether the upper floor of the bell tower on the north side is part of the original structure of the church, because it is separated from the lower floor by a surrounding cornice and shows better processed stones, but only unstructured and undecorated sound openings as they were common in rural areas in the 18th century are. The attached spheres can in any case be understood as a distant reminiscence of the Escorial .
church
Like the basement of the tower, the church seems to have been built from rubble stones - only the corner stones are carved. The two-aisled interior of the church is covered by an open roof. In the tiny - outside and inside largely unadorned - apse is a pieced together altarpiece ; a shell-shaped, ribbed baptismal font with a tendril relief on the edge is located in a corner of the nave .
lobby
The actual architectural highlight of the church is its porch, which takes up the entire length of the church in the south and part of the width of the west side. While the arcades on the south side are architecturally rather simple, the portal and the three arcades on the west side show a rich decor, which mainly consists of circumferential sculptural zigzag motifs not interrupted by capitals , which are common to those at the churches of Sotosalbos , San Pedro de Gaíllos and Perorrubio are similar, which suggests wandering stone cutters . The portal also presents a front with tendril decoration and a multi-jagged archivolt with stone heads, which rests on two set columns with capitals.
The south side has a much simpler design overall - the portal, which is slightly pointed at the top, protrudes slightly from the wall; the two eastern arcades rest on double pillars, while the five western arcades mostly rest on pillars with a square cross-section that is chamfered at the corners. Most of the capitals are deeply worked and mostly show vegetal, but also animal motifs. Quite unusual for a capital is the depiction of Christ as Pantocrator surrounded by the four symbols of the evangelists .
South side of the porch
Capital with plant decoration
Capital with birds with human heads
Capital with a net-shaped braided ribbon pattern and Christ as Pantocrator surrounded by the four evangelist symbols
Capital with tendrils and chimeras
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Web links
- Church of San Juan Bautista - Photos + Quick Facts (Spanish)
- Church of San Juan Bautista - Photos + Quick Facts (Spanish)
- San Juan Bautista Church - Photos
- San Juan Bautista Church - Photos
Coordinates: 41 ° 9 ′ 34 " N , 3 ° 46 ′ 7" W.