Sant Cristòfol de Beget
Sant Cristòfol de Beget (also Sant Cristòfor de Beget ) is a Romanesque church from the 12th century in the Catalan province of Girona in Spain . It is located in the village of Beget , which is part of the municipality of Camprodon , in the far northwest of the Comarca Garrotxa . The main municipality of Camprodon itself already belongs to the Comarca Ripollès .
Architectural structure
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The church is built as a single-nave hall structure. A bell tower in the Lombard Romanesque style is added to the south side of the church. The tower consists of four floors, which are separated from each other by sawtooth-like friezes on the outer facade. The ground floor and, according to some researchers, the first floor come from a temple from the 10th century, which was integrated into the current church building. The first floor has two window openings lying one above the other. The walls of this storey are made of small ashlar stones of different sizes. The second and third tower floors, built in the 12th century, have more stable and regular masonry. The second floor has double openings and the third tower floor has Lombard arches. The tower openings are made across all floors on all four sides of the tower.
The entrance portal of the church is vaulted by five semicircular stone arches one behind the other. The two outer arches are supported on pillars on each side. The outer columns are smooth on the surface, the inner columns worked in a spiral shape. All four columns end in heavily weathered capitals bearing mythological animal figures. The tympanum or pediment is flat and finished with a square frieze.
The barrel vault of the church roof rests on a cornice on the main wall. At the level of the presbytery there are small chapels that extend slightly outwards. The triumphal arch and parts of the nave were decorated with paintings in Romanesque style in 1890 by the famous Olotensian painter Joaquim Vayreda .
The single-nave basilica ends in the east in an apse decorated with a Lombard arched frieze. This frieze consists of a sawtooth-shaped band with underlying round arches that are placed on consoles. In the center of the apse there is a very beautiful double-arched, stepped church window. The outer arch is supported on a column on each side. The apse is built from perfectly hewn ashlar stones. The apse has a tiled roof.
interior
The interior of the church has remained almost intact for centuries. Above the main altar is the "Majesty of Beget", a Romanesque figure of Christ from the end of the 12th century. It is distinguished by a very beautiful Romanesque waist with a robe, a crown on the head. The arms are stretched out sideways. The statue hangs over the main Gothic alabaster altar. On the side above the altar there is a group of baroque altar pieces, which contrast nicely with the Romanesque lines of the surroundings. On the right in the nave there is a Gothic figure of Mary made of polychrome alabaster, the “Mare de Déu de la Salut” from the late 14th century. The church also contains a Romanesque baptismal font made as an immersion basin. This baptismal font is decorated with two stone cords running in opposite directions. It has a diameter of 1.20 meters. The entire architectural ensemble from the 12th century is enriched with elements from the previous period of the 10th and 11th centuries.
history
The church was dedicated to Saint Christopher in the late 12th century. The place Beget and the previous church was first mentioned in 979 in the will of Count and Bishop Miró, when he gave the Valley of Beget to the monastery of Camprodon as an allod or free property. In 1013 the Camprodon Monastery began building the current church. As described, the previous building was integrated into the tower system. In 1160 Arnau de Llers gave the church of Beget to the diocese of Girona. The parish located in the church is mentioned for the first time in 1168. The baroque altars were paid for by the rector Genís Pagès i de Pol, who worked in Beget for 45 years in the 18th century. A restoration of the main altar and the presbytery has been documented for 1787. The lateral altarpieces, whose pointed arches fit perfectly into the Romanesque spatial structure, date from this time. In the 19th century - as mentioned above - the painter Joaquim Vayreda decorated the triumphal arch and parts of the nave with paintings in the Romanesque style. For this Vayreda received 1301.25 pesetas. The church was declared a “National Monument” of Spain in 1931. In 1936, the residents of Beget saved the “Majestat” and the other art treasures of the church from the iconoclastic destruction in the run-up to the Spanish Civil War . The Church did not suffer any damage in the Spanish Civil War.
According to the Catalan writer and proven connoisseur of old Catalan culture Ramon Vinyeta i Leyes (1914–2005), the church of Sant Cristofòl de Beget is an outstanding example of the rural Romanesque style in all of the comarcas of the Pyrenees.
literature
- Josep Murlà i Giralt; Nicolau Gironès i Casanovas: Guia del romanic de La Garrotxa . Alzamora, Olot 1983, OCLC 434851504 . Page 56 f., There the article "Sant Cristófor de Beget"
- Enciclopèdia Catalana, Gran Geografia Comarcal de Catalunya, Volume 3, 1st edition, Barcelona 1981, ISBN 84-85194-17-9 (Volume 3), chapter “Beget”, page 372, there is a brief review of the Church “Sant Cristòfol de Beget "
Individual evidence
- ↑ The article was created after the article "Sant Cristòfol de Beget" in the Gran Geografia Comarcal de Catalunya and supplemented with information mainly on the bell tower and the history of the church from the corresponding article in the Catalan Wikipedia.
Web links
Coordinates: 42 ° 19 ′ 16.1 ″ N , 2 ° 28 ′ 48.5 ″ E