Igreja do Mosteiro de Santa Maria de Arnoso 01

Church of Santa Eulalia of the Monastery of Arnoso () is a church in Vila Nova de Famalicão,

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

. It was classified as a

National Monument A national monument is a monument constructed in order to commemorate something of importance to national heritage, such as a country's founding, independence, war, or the life and death of a historical figure. The term may also refer to a spec ...

in 1938.

History

The original church was founded in the 7th century on the initiative of San Frutuoso, Bishop of Dume and Braga during the

Visigoth The Visigoths (; la, Visigothi, Wisigothi, Vesi, Visi, Wesi, Wisi) were an early Germanic people who, along with the Ostrogoths, constituted the two major political entities of the Goths within the Roman Empire in late antiquity, or what is kno ...

era, and destroyed by the

Moors The term Moor, derived from the ancient Mauri, is an exonym first used by Christian Europeans to designate the Muslim inhabitants of the Maghreb, the Iberian Peninsula, Sicily and Malta during the Middle Ages. Moors are not a distinct or ...

in the 11th century. It was later rebuilt by King García II of Galicia.

Architecture

It is a simple church in early Romanesque style with a

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

, a

barrel vault A barrel vault, also known as a tunnel vault, wagon vault or wagonhead vault, is an architectural element formed by the extrusion of a single curve (or pair of curves, in the case of a pointed barrel vault) along a given distance. The curves are ...

and a rectangular

apse In architecture, an apse (plural apses; from Latin 'arch, vault' from Ancient Greek 'arch'; sometimes written apsis, plural apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome, also known as an ''exedra''. In ...

with blind arches. The wooden portal consist of round arches and a tympanum with a cross pattée. These round arches are profusely decorated with geometric, intertwined and zoomorphic elements. Inside the church there are a few sixteenth century frescoes with episodes from the life of Our Lady. The two crosses on top of the roof show some similarities with

Celtic cross The Celtic cross is a form of Christian cross featuring a nimbus or ring that emerged in Ireland, France and Great Britain in the Early Middle Ages. A type of ringed cross, it became widespread through its use in the stone high crosses er ...

es.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Igreja de Santa Eulalia do Mosteiro de Arnoso Churches in Braga District National monuments in Braga District Vila Nova de Famalicão Romanesque architecture in Portugal