Abbey Church of Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe
Description
The Abbey Church of Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe is located in Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe, in Poitou, France.
Description
The Romanesque church was begun in the mid-11th century and contains many beautiful 11th- and 12th-century murals which are still in a remarkable state of preservation. It has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1983.
The cruciform church carries a square tower over its crossing. The transept was built first, then the choir with its ambulatory with five radial chapels in the polygonal apse. In the next building campaign, three bays of the nave were added, the bell tower and its porch, and finally the last six bays of the nave. The bell tower is finished by a fine stone spire more than 80 meters high, added in the 14th century and restored in the 19th century.
The barrel vaulted nave is supported on magnificently-scaled columns with foliate capitals.
Below the church is the crypt of the martyr brothers St Savin and St Cyprian, decorated with frescos depicting scenes from their lives.
Street view
Reviews
The Church of Saint-Savin dates mainly from the end of the 11th century, but some parts—including the transept with wings, square tower, and the crypts of St. Martin and of the Saints Savin and Cyprian—are even older. It has a three-aisled nave with nine bays, an apse with radiating chapels at the east end and a clocher-porche (bell-tower structure) on the west. Steps descend to the narthex and from there to the floor of the nave, whose bare round columns are topped with deeply-carved capitals in foliage motifs.
But the chief attraction of this attractive Romanesque church are its murals, because of their graceful beauty, extensiveness, and relatively good state of preservation.
Dating from between the end of the 11th century and the beginning of the 12th century, they illustrate an extensive array of major biblical stories.
One pictorial cycle, depicting the Apocalypse, covers the ceiling of the clocher-porche and the tympanum of the doorway opening into the church.
A second series illustrates events from Genesis and Exodus across the entire barrel-vaulting of the central nave: the creation of the earth and the stars; the birth of Eve; the Temptation and its consequences; the story of Cain and Abel; the flood; Noah and his descendants; Abraham; Joseph, the crossing of the Red Sea; workers constructing the Tower of Babel.
The Passion of Christ is painted in the upper tribune of the porch, which incorporates scenes of the martyrs; large figures of saints are found in the choir and on the piers of the transept. Finally, the lives and martyrdoms of Saint Savin and Saint Cyprian occupy the walls of the crypts which bear their names.