San Miguel de Celanova
San Miguel de Celanova is a pre-Romanesque chapel from the 10th century, which is attributed to the Mozarabic architectural style. It is located in Celanova , the capital of the municipality of the same name, in the autonomous Spanish region of Galicia, and is 26 km south of Orense . In 1923 it was declared a cultural monument (Monumento Nacional).
history
In 936 Rudesindus , son of the Count of Vilanova, founded the Cellanova Monastery , which included the Church of San Salvador and a small chapel or oratory . The latter was called the ospitiolum (chapel for guests) and was built for clerics on their travels. Only this chapel, dedicated to the Archangel Michael , remains of the medieval monastery complex .
Rudesindus is venerated in Galicia as San Rosendo, who, according to legend, fought against Normans and Moors . He was first bishop of Dume (near Braga , today Portugal ) and later became a monk , perhaps also abbot of Celanova. In 970 he was appointed Bishop of Iria Flavia (now Padrón ), an office he held until his death in 977. The property on which he founded the monastery was a gift from the Galician royal family to the Rudesindus family and heir to his brother Fruela, who donated it for the foundation of the monastery. The abbey was consecrated in 942 . When a monk named Ordoño wrote the biography of Rudesindus in 1180, he also mentioned a document from 1002 in which the small chapel is praised as an admirable building.
The current monastery of San Salvador de Celanova was completely rebuilt in the 16th century and much larger and later rebuilt in Baroque style . In 1952 and 1954, the architects Luis Menéndez Pidal and F. Pons Sorolla carried out restoration work on St. Michael's Chapel. The founding inscription was uncovered.
architecture
With a length of 8.5 meters and a width of 3.85 meters, San Miguel de Celanova is a very small building and only has an area of 25 m². The building consists of three parts. The entrance is formed by a rectangular vestibule , which is adjoined by a square main room. In the east, this opens into an apse with a horseshoe-shaped floor plan, which with a diameter of 1.35 meters is more reminiscent of the prayer niche ( mihrab ) of a mosque . The tower-like middle section reaches a height of six meters.
The masonry consists of large, carefully hewn granite blocks , which - like the buildings from the Visigothic period - are joined together in regular layers and without mortar . Buttresses divide the vestibule and the central structure. The latter has a pyramid roof that rests on granite slabs supported by stone consoles . Because of their bead-shaped decorations, these are called wheel consoles. They are decorated with reliefs of rosettes and sun wheels and are similar to those in San Miguel de Escalada . The vestibule and apse have saddle roofs that are less expansive. The upper end of the walls is formed by a cornice , over which a toothed frieze cut in stone runs at the apse . The only entrance is - as is often the case in Mozarab churches - on the south side of the building. All parts of the building have narrow, keyhole-shaped window openings.
All three parts of the room are vaulted . The antechamber has a horseshoe-shaped barrel vaults , the middle part is a made of brick masonry and plastered groin vault whose sign stilted arches rest on rolls consoles. The small apse - like the two apses of Santiago de Peñalba - is spanned by an eight-part umbrella dome . Tightly closed horseshoe arches , as are typical of Mozarabic architecture, separate the apse and vestibule from the main square room. An Alfiz frame - also a Mozarabic style element - runs around the horseshoe arch of the apse and reinforces the impression that this arch is the entrance to a mihrab .
Murals
Remnants of the original painting have been preserved on the apse arch . A braided ribbon is shown in red on the Alfiz frame .
Donor inscription
A stone with a Latin inscription in which Fruela claims to be the founder of the church is walled in above the lintel . At the same time he turns to God to forgive all who pray here for their sins, and he asks the reader of the inscription to pray for him.
symbolism
The arrangement of the three rooms is a sequence of rectangles, squares and circles and symbolizes the path from the earthly to the divine. The floor plan is inscribed in a Latin cross , the interior almost round apse is embedded in the square of the outer walls. The circle is a symbol of heaven and perfection and the square, like the number four, is a symbol of creation, the world. The eight-piece dome represents the transition of the square to the circle and the number eight reminded that Jesus according to Christian teaching on the eighth day of the dead resurrected is.
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. 301-305 and 310-313.
- Jaime Cobreros: Guía del Prerrománico en España . Madrid 2006, ISBN 84-9776-215-0 , pp. 70-72.
- Jacques Fontaine: L'Art Mozarabe. L'Art Préroman Hispanique . 2nd edition, Vol. 2, La Pierre-qui-Vire (Zodiaque), 1995, ISBN 2-7369-0215-7 , pp. 148-150.
Web links
Coordinates: 42 ° 9 '8.5 " N , 7 ° 57' 23.4" W.