Iglesia de San Martiño de Pazo - Allariz, Ourense, Galicia, España
Posted by: Groundspeak Premium Member Ariberna
N 42° 10.468 W 007° 49.913
29T E 596476 N 4669807
Quick Description: BIC desde 04-06-1931
Location: Galicia, Spain
Date Posted: 3/29/2021 2:04:43 AM
Waymark Code: WM141PZ
Published By: Groundspeak Premium Member Alfouine
Views: 0

Long Description:
Historical environment
Although the exact date of its foundation is unknown, there is a really interesting document for its approximate dating. It is about a donation that the old monastery of Santa Comba de Bande made to that of Celanova, at the end of the 10th century, it speaks of an ancient writing that inherits the monastery of Palatiolo to Doña Guntroda, the events occurring in the life of the Bishop of Compostela Hermenegildo (922-951), also intervening San Rosendo (928-942) (Celanova) and Ramiro II (930-950) from what we can deduce that between 930 and 942 San Martín de Palaciolo existed as a church, being one of those heir monasteries, duplices, that the nobility of Galicia founded in the 9th and 10th centuries and of which several testimonies are still preserved.

The church of San Martiño de Pazó a short distance from Allariz (Historic-Artistic Complex), is perfectly oriented and offers to the North magnificent views of the valley over the Arnoya river that crosses the town.

Possibly a reform of the late seventeenth century with the idea of ??building a presbytery of greater proportions made the apse disappear and that is why San Martiño de Pazó has become very mutilated to our days. Among these modifications; They blocked one of the side doors that communicated with the monastic house, they renewed the upper part of the elevations, making the very important cornice disappear. They rebuilt the side windows and widened the main door by reinforcing the interior jambs. Until then and given the absence of elements of other styles (Romanesque for example) this curious monument had to be preserved in its entirety.

Today, the lateral walls in almost their entire height, the foundations and part of the façade remain; that is to say, three key elements for a precise classification of this monument, such as the layout and proportions of its nave, the side doors and the rigging of the walls.

The nave is a fairly elongated rectangle, an approximate length to the Mozarabic neighbor of Santa María de Villanueva (now disappeared). The doors, equal in layout and located one in front of the other, have a horseshoe arch, both framed by the characteristic alfiz of Mozarabic constructions that offers a particularity and that is that it comes down from the horizontal of the arch thus increasing the beauty of its lines. . Internally, these doors seem to have another horseshoe arch with a greater radius and a higher center in the style of the also nearby San Miguel de Celanova, since this seems to be guessed on both sides under the layers of lime that cover the church.

The walls of little thickness, almost the same as that of Celanova, it is seen that they were built to support a wooden deck, they are smooth and without buttresses. With a pseudo-isodomous rig, uneven ashlars in the longitudinal direction and uneven courses at the top, sometimes broken or with coupled ashlars to overcome unevenness or regularize courses. Of course, always with a tendency to horizontality and granite ashlars set to bone.

On the façade, on both sides of the main door, pointing to where the old wall is preserved and about 90 cm from the ground, two small horseshoe arch windows with a lot of thread are embedded between the rest of the ashlars, built with small voussoirs of concentric backing. and radial breakdown that, due to being obstructed and covered with lime, are not perceived inside the church.

It is therefore an example of Mozarabic architecture with a single nave with a wooden roof from the Visigothic tradition of the Latin school such as San Román de Moroso or Santo Tomás de las Ollas in El Bierzo.

The current proportions of the presbytery, lined with the walls of the nave, suggest that inside San Martiño de Pazó had a horseshoe apse like San Miguel de Celanova, San Cebrián de Mazote (Valladolid) or Santiago de Peñalba in León .

Perhaps the most important piece of information about Pazó to determine its antiquity within the Mozarabic style is the ultrasemicircular portion of the arches since the arches of this church start directly from the jambs, without capitals or cornices and with a single third of radius of camber.

fonte: (visit link)
Building Materials: Stone

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Ariberna visited Iglesia de San Martiño de Pazo  - Allariz, Ourense, Galicia, España 4/4/2021 Ariberna visited it