Type: Church
Century: XII
Architectural style: Romanesque
Village: Bossòst
Municipality: Bossòst
Bossòst, one of the most dynamic and colouristic villages of the Baish (Low) Aran, houses a magnificent example of Aranese Romanesque architecture: the church of Era Mair de Diu dera Purificacion. It stands near the boulevard that crosses the village, facing the old neighbourhood of el Cap dera Vila.
What is immediately striking about its magnificent architecture is its stylistic unity, which makes it a faithful visual documentation of Romanesque architecture as it evolved in the 12th Century. Era Mair de Diu dera Purificacion is a compendium of the main attributes of the artistic legacy of the Romanesque, with its three-nave basilical ground plan built in a barrel vault and resting on circular pillars; its three apses, profusely decorated with Lombardy origin sculptural elements; its belfry, attached to the north-east angle comprising decorative columns, bell-shaped and geminated windows and Lombardy arcuatures, and its two facades, each one with a tympanum, of major iconographic and structural richness on the basis of a succession of decreasing arches.
Inside the church, the structural design of the Romanesque architecture of Era Mair de Diu dera Purificacion will be apparent, with the four arches that separate the naves and the supporting circular pillars, all of them made of finely-worked and squared stone, crowned by smooth imposts. One detail not to be overlooked is a wall painting fragment in the central apse, which points to the representation of the Epiphany; these paintings date back to the end of the 13th Century and the beginning of the 14th.
