San Martín (Artáiz)
The portal of the Church of San Martín de Artáiz is one of the jewels of the Romanesque style south of the Pyrenees .
location
The church is about 600 meters above sea level. d. M. in the village of Artáiz , which still has about 45 inhabitants, in the municipality ( municipio ) Unciti in the valley of the same name in the autonomous community of Navarre . The distance to the north-western city of Pamplona is about 25 kilometers (driving distance).
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 equipment, it is hard to imagine that it was a simple village parish church. The rather unadorned west tower is likely to have been built a century later.
architecture
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The unstructured apse of the small church, built from precisely hewn stones, is completely unadorned. A simple console frieze runs below the eaves .
portal
The portal of the church is on the south side of the nave and protrudes slightly from the wall surface - both can be seen in many churches in south-west France and in north Spain. The three-tiered portal walls and the richly profiled archivolt arches create a depth of space that cannot be overlooked. The capitals of the set monolithic columns of the robe show three-dimensionally worked out vegetable motifs as well as animal and human figures. The outer archivolt is covered by a blind arch with block decoration. The tympanum field , consisting of a stone slab , contains three circular reliefs - while the two side circles are decorated with six-part flower or star reliefs, the middle one shows a Christ monogram (☧) with the Greek letters Α and Ω in the two outer fields; What is unusual is the fact that, in addition to the Greek letters 'chi' and 'rho', there is also a Latin 't' and an 's' and thus complement the name 'Christ'. In the two outer spandrels of the portal there are two lion-like monsters that stand over people lying on the ground. The portal closes at the top in a figurative console frieze , the metope fields of which also contain figurative scenes (including the feast of the rich Prasser, Christ's descent into hell, weighing of the soul, the battle of two knights).
Nave
The two western bays of the dark and squat-looking nave are spanned by a simple barrel vault; the eastern parts, however, have a late Gothic rib vault . The apse was previously plastered and painted with frescoes.
West tower
The west tower, built in a much coarser manner, functions as a bell tower and was probably only placed on the west yoke of the nave in the 13th century.
Furnishing
The church is equipped with a round Romanesque baptismal font ( pila bautismal ) resting on a pillar with an exterior decoration of 16 blind arcades on small double pillars. Parts of the wall surfaces and the apse were painted with Gothic frescoes, but these were removed a long time ago and can now be seen in the Museo de Navarra in Pamplona .
cistern
About 150 meters from the church there is a roofed cistern from the 13th century that is well worth seeing .
Web links
- San Martín de Artáiz - Photo + Info (Spanish)
- San Martín de Artáiz - photos, floor plan + information (Spanish)
- San Martín de Artáiz - photos, floor plan + information (Spanish)
- San Martín de Artáiz - photo + information
- San Martín de Artáiz - photos, floor plan + information (Spanish)
Coordinates: 42 ° 44 ′ 55 " N , 1 ° 28 ′ 10" W.