User:56independent/Sant Romà de Sau

File:Pantà de Sau - Remains of the church of Sant Romà2.jpg

The church of Sant Romà, in October 2005

Sant Romà de Sau is a population entity in the municipality of Vilanova de Sau in the region of Osona.

It was founded in 917. The population was evacuated when the Sau reservoir was built in 1962 to cover the old town. Despite being a small town, it had a few farmhouses, a Romanesque bridge and a church (currently half-demolished) that protrudes from the marsh waters in times of drought.

Church of Sant Romà de Sau

The Lombard Romanesque style church is dated to the 8th century. It has a single nave pointing from east to west with an apse and Lombard arches on the north side. It has an attached three-story bell tower with glazed windows with a plain capital on the second floor, Lombard arches and saw teeth. The windows on the third floor are semi-circular arches and it is roofed on four sides.

It is only half-ruined as it was renovated in times of drought, which fixed the bell tower, collapsed the cover and the attached structures. Nowadays it is difficult to distinguish the body of the old church from the later buildings attached to it. Lombardy arches are preserved on the north wall, above which the construction apparatus changes, which up to that point was made of well-encrusted stone and later was made of river pebbles. To the west is a covered window. The vault has now collapsed.

New Church

The new church was built by the architect Josep Maria Pericas in an eclectic style. It is located on a hill above the Sau swamp. It has a single nave but the cruise is marked both in plan and in elevation. The apse has a raised semicircular plan and rectangular windows dividing the spaces with stone columns with decorated capitals. On the left side there is an attached side chapel and on the right side there is the rector's house. At the bottom the buillding is the heart. The interior features a marble altar table and an altarpiece, both designed by the architect Pericas.

The facade faces south-west and has a triangular gable, with a stone window decorated with stained glass, in front of which an atrium is formed. To the left of the portal is the bell tower, with a circular tower. It is built with unpolished gray stone.

History

The old church was consecrated in 1062 and belongs to the Lombard Romanesque. It was greatly affected by the earthquake of the 15th century and was subsequently reformed and expanded, as can be seen from the difference in construction equipment. Since the construction of the Sau swamp in the 1960s, it remains submerged under water, but in times of drought it comes to the surface.

Near the lock of the Sau swamp, on the right side of the river, the new church of Sant Romà was built from 1951, the work of the architect Josep Maria Pericas, where there were the chalets of the engineers and some houses of the leaders of the works, and the site now forms a small residential nucleus. It responds to an eclectic style with a lot of use of unpolished stone, a characteristic feature of the work of Pericas.

In the old town, in 1955, Ignacio F. Iquino shot most of Camino cortado there, and the images are an exceptional graphic document of the already abandoned town, before the flood, still with all the houses (with views also of their interiors ), the streets, the paths, the Romanesque bridge and the surrounding fields.

In 2021, a study carried out by the Official World Record organization with the collaboration of the Heritage Didactic Research Group of the University of Barcelona determined that Sant Romà de Sau is the church submerged in a swamp and which is the oldest preserved in the world.

External links

• "Sant Romà de Sau". Map of cultural heritage. Diputació de Barcelona.
• General Directorate of Cultural Heritage of the Generalitat of Catalonia (ed.). "Sant Romà de Sau". Inventory of the Archaeological and Paleontological Heritage of Catalonia.