St Martin's Church ( ca, Sant Martí de Puig-reig ()Puig-reig
'Nomenclàtor oficial de toponímia major de Catalunya'. Departament de Territori i Sostenibilitat, Generalitat de Catalunya is a Romanesque church from 12th century in

Puig-reig Puig-reig () is a municipality and town in the comarca of Berguedà, Catalonia. As of 2009, the town had a population of 4,403. Atop a hill overlooking the Llobregat River, its name means 'royal hill' in old Catalan. The town includes two medieval ...

, Spain, near the modern parochial church and the former

Puig-reig Castle Puig-reig () is a municipality and town in the comarca of Berguedà, Catalonia. As of 2009, the town had a population of 4,403. Atop a hill overlooking the Llobregat River, its name means 'royal hill' in old Catalan. The town includes two medieval ...

Exterior

The church's construction comprises large stone blocks of various sizes, and its thick side-walls are carried by a number of side-

buttresses A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient buildings, as a means of providing support to act against the lateral (si ...

. The exterior of the church is completely plain, without ornamentation, except at the west wall. Atop the west wall stands the

bell-gable The bell gable ( es, espadaña, french: clocher-mur, it, campanile a vela) is an architectural element crowning the upper end of the wall of church buildings, usually in lieu of a church tower. It consists of a gable end in stone, with small ho ...

with its twin openings, and below it is the main door, which has a simple three-arch

archivolt An archivolt (or voussure) is an ornamental moulding or band following the curve on the underside of an arch. It is composed of bands of ornamental mouldings (or other architectural elements) surrounding an arched opening, corresponding to the ...

, supported in part by four columns and their capitals.

Interior

The church has a single nave, covered with 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 finished by a semicircular

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 ...

. The apse vault begins as a simple- impost

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a ...

, and is separated from the nave by a triumphal arch. At its rear is a single narrow window, vaulted with a

voussoir A voussoir () is a wedge-shaped element, typically a stone, which is used in building an arch or vault. Although each unit in an arch or vault is a voussoir, two units are of distinct functional importance: the keystone and the springer. The ...

arch. It still contains some of its original Romanesque murals.

References

External links

* More pictures a
Sant Martí de Puig-reig, ''Art Medieval''
(in Catalan). {{Coord, 41, 58, 15, N, 1, 52, 53, E, display=title, region:ES-CT_type:landmark_source:cawiki 12th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in Spain Churches in Catalonia Romanesque architecture in Catalonia Berguedà