Monestir de Santa Maria de Poblet

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Monestir de Santa Maria de Poblet
Panoramic picture of the Poblet Abbey
Panoramic picture of the Poblet Abbey
location SpainSpain Spain
Lies in the diocese Tarragona
Coordinates: 41 ° 22 '48 "  N , 1 ° 4' 38"  E Coordinates: 41 ° 22 '48 "  N , 1 ° 4' 38"  E
Serial number
according to Janauschek 		322
founding year 1151
Year of dissolution /
annulment 		1835
Year of repopulation 1940
Mother monastery Sainte-Marie de Fontfroide abbey
Primary Abbey Clairvaux Monastery
Congregation Coronae Aragonum

Daughter monasteries

Piedra
Monastery Benifassà
Monastery Santa María de la Real Monastery
(Palma de Mallorca)

Access to the abbey church

The Poblet Monastery (lat. Abbatia BMV de Populeto ) is a Catalan Cistercian - Abbey . The monastery is located four kilometers from Vimbodí in the Comarca Conca de Barberà in the province of Tarragona . In 1991 it was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO .

history

The monastery was founded in 1151 by Raimund Berengar IV , Count of Barcelona , and the summoned brothers of the Abbey of Sainte-Marie de Fontfroide in Roussillon and later ceded to the Cistercian order . The royal couple of Aragon chose it as their pantheon and it developed into one of the most outstanding cultural centers of the time. The library was of particular importance . Poblet is the largest and most magnificent royal monastery in Spain, at the same time the most extensive and best-preserved Cistercian monastery in the West, but has been heavily restored (museum). The most important buildings date from the 12th to 15th centuries.

The monastery was given as a sign of triumph and stone thanksgiving for the expulsion of the Muslim Arabs from the south of Catalonia. It remained a royal chancellery and tomb until the end of the Catalan-Aragonese kingdom.

Almost at the same time, the Santes Creus monastery and the Santa Maria de Vallbona nunnery were founded nearby , both Cistercian monasteries, which were then booming. The three monasteries are now part of the Ruta del Cister .

Refectory of the monks

In 1835 the monastery life was ended by decree during the time of the disamortization , the buildings were set on fire, looted and destroyed. On November 24, 1940, the abbey was repopulated by Italian Cistercian monks.

church

The large seven-bay abbey church was built in the first phase of construction from 1166 to 1198. It has a length of 85 m and a central nave height of 28 m. They were based on Burgundian models of the 12th century. Some renovations followed in the 14th century. Unlike in Santes Creus, the creative exuberance here stayed within the limits of the Cistercian tradition for a long time. The main nave was given a pointed barrel as a vault, only in the side aisles there are rib vaults. There were cf. the first ribbed vault of the country with the typical Cistercian development of the rib from the rectangular template and Gurtbogens from the submitted Siphon (. Their influence in Salamanca and Avila , comp. Also Santes Creus 1152, Vallbona 1157, of Grandselve Abbey founded in ).

The ribbed vaults are designed differently in the north and later south aisles. In the north they still worked with bulging ribs, so the vault still has a barrel-like character. In the south, this scheme was later changed to a completed Gothic ribbed vault with the services on consoles. The renunciation of services that rise from the ground up is a characteristic building custom of the Cistercians and was later taken up again in the gothic mendicant order. As a result, the walls remain large and unstructured.

One of the works of art in the interior of the church is the reredos created by Damià Forment between 1527 and 1529 ; it is the first major Renaissance work in Catalonia.

Royal crypts in the crossing

The famous royal tombs in the crossing of the abbey church were created from 1340. They are no longer preserved in the original, were later heavily destroyed and reassembled and supplemented from the existing rubble. Around 1340, Peter the Ceremonial ordered the tombs of the two kings who had previously been buried in Poblet (Alfonso I and James II), his own, that of his wives and also those of his successors in the basilica's cruciform. So of the 13 kings of Aragon and counts of Barcelona, ​​who go from the union of Petronilas and Ramon Berenguer IV to Ferdinand V of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, eight rest in Poblet, accompanied by six queens and numerous infants and princes.

Among others, the following are buried in Poblet Monastery:

Arches of the cloister

Cloister

The south gallery directly at the church, opposite the fountain house, is the oldest in the cloister ; it dates from the 12th century. The other three, although they were certainly made shortly after the southern one, already have a purely Gothic appearance. In the 13th century, all wings were uniformly covered with a ribbed vault. The upper part of the cloister was added in the 15th and 16th centuries.

The luxurious capitals develop the abstract ornament or the ornament derived from plant forms to the greatest perfection, but strictly observe the limits that Saint Bernard set his students and successors: there is no place here for the figurative narrative, the fantastic or even the humorous in contrast to Santes Creus. For this they are worked with extraordinary care.

The fountain house still adheres to the Romanesque scheme, but already shows - according to the Cistercian early Gothic forms - a grouping of two under an overhanging arch without tracery.

The dormitory from the late 12th century has a considerable length of 87 m. The roof rests on 19 transverse arches.

See also

Two other important Cistercian monasteries are not far away: the Santes Creus monastery and the Vallbona monastery . The three monasteries are connected by the 104 km long Ruta del Cister , which is the Spanish GR-175 long-distance hiking trail . The small church of Sant Ramon , which has an unusual portal, is not far from the route in El Pla de Santa Maria .

literature

  • Adam, Ernst: Pre-Romanesque and Romanesque. Frankfurt 1968, p. 157;
  • Allemann, Fritz René / Xenia v. Bahder: Catalonia and Andorra. Cologne [1980] 4th edition 1986. (DuMont Art Travel Guide), p. 280, fig. 122–130, color plate 39
  • Barral I Altet, Xavier (ed.): The history of Spanish art. Cologne 1997, p. 149
  • Oliver, Jesús M .: Abbey of Poblet. Barcelona 1991

Web links

Commons : Monestir de Santa Maria de Poblet  - Collection of images, videos and audio files