Type:Church
Century: XV-XVIII
Architectural Style: Romanesque – Gothic – Baroque
Village: Montcorbau
Municipality: Vielha e Mijaran
The church of Sant Estèue, despite its origins, absorbed the artistic legacy of Gothic and Baroque periods. The first thing the visitor notices on entering the church is its popular feel, particularly evident in the well-conserved and recently restored 18th-Century wall paintings.The central section of the nave and the baptismal font bear witness to the Romanesque period. The church of Sant Estèue underwent its first major transformation as far back as the 15th Century, when a polygonal Gothic apse replaced the original Romanesque one. The Gothic apse can be appreciated in all its splendour inside the church, where its architectural structuring is patent in the elevated and elegant ribs that emerge from the floor and meet at the ring of the dome that covers the apse area. Subsequently, in the Baroque period, five chapels were added to the sides of the nave, and have given the church its current appearance; these chapels illustrate different biblical episodes, which convey the popular spirit referred to at the beginning. The belfry attached to the apse was also added in the 18th Century, as was the entrance portico; the facade of this portico contains an embedded Roman cippus and a monogram of Christ.
