Església de Sant Martí (Church of Saint Martin), a medieval Romanesque church at La Cortinada in the Ordino Valley in Andorra. The church was built in the 1000s and 1100s AD and stands amid rugged but well-wooded slopes in the eastern Pyrenees. It has rubble walls, a two-storey bell tower and a fish scale roof.
La Cortinada, Ordino Valley, Andorra: the Església de Sant Martí de la Cortinada (Church of Saint Martin), founded in the late-11th or early 12th century, has retained its rustic Romanesque character despite structural and internal changes in the Baroque period of the 1600s and 1700s. The church, here seen from the south, stands amid the rugged wooded slopes of the Coll d’Ordino, in northern Andorra. The current structure, under a wooden roof covered with fish scale tiles, has a quadrangular plan with side altars and a square apse to the north, a round-arched doorway to the south and a two-storey bell tower attached to the west wall. The rubble south wall corresponds to the old wall of the Romanesque nave, but of the Romanesque north wall, the section corresponding to the presbytery is the only remnant to survive. Inside, rediscovered 12th century wall-paintings that once decorated the nave of the original church have been attributed to an artist known only as the Master of La Cortinada. They provide good examples of Romanesque Andorran fresco art. Wrought iron railings in the church are a reminder of the iron industry that thrived in the Ordino Valley for centuries.
Size: 4256px × 2832px
Location: La Cortinada, Ordino Valley, Andorra
Photo credit: © Terence Kerr / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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