Church of San Antonio Abad, Tauste

Church of San Antonio Abad, Tauste

CURRENT PROTECTION CATEGORY: BIC

TYPE OF PROPERTY: Real estate

CATEGORY: Religious

ARCHITECTURALSTYLE: Romanesque and Mudejar

DATE OF CONSTRUCTION: 13th century

Located in the Arrabal neighbourhood, presiding over the Plaza de San Antonio, the small church of San Antonio Abad stands free of attached buildings. It is a modest Romanesque construction dating from the 13th century whose tower was built in the 16th century. Built on a simple ground plan, it has a single nave with seven bays and a semicircular apse preceded by a presbytery. The interior, lacking in luxury and ostentation, has a diaphanous space of slender proportions only compartmentalised by the choir raised at the foot. It is enclosed by an oven vault in the apse, a pointed barrel vault in the presbytery and a wooden frame over pointed diaphragm arches in the nave.

On the outside, it is a simple volume with a unitary character, determined by the combination of brick and masonry, currently under a cement render.

The walls are articulated only by the compartmentalisation of the buttresses, the opening of two simple openings and the access through the north wall, as well as the blind semicircular arcade that decorates the apse; the original access, opened in the south wall by a simple semicircular arch doorway crowned in the keystone with a very deteriorated relief of Saint Martin, is currently covered with an alabaster panel.

The Mudejar-style tower, attached in the 16th century to the foot of the nave, was built in brick on a base of stone ashlars. It consists of two lower sections with a square floor plan and an upper section with an octagonal floor plan. With a very simple articulation by means of semicircular openings, the decoration based on rows of angled bricks and ceramic friezes stands out.

In the 16th century, the façade was transformed, the apse was enlarged and a Mudejar tower was built.

Interventions

Restoration, 20th Century to 21st Century

From 1/01/2021 – 31/12/2021 the integral restoration of the church will be carried out, co-financed by the City Council, which will be in charge of the exterior, and the Government of Aragon, whose intervention will focus on the interior. The general objectives of the intervention are to restore the structural safety of the building and to solve the serious problems of damp in the walls.

Projects and interventions

Projects and interventions and their promoters define the history of monumental buildings as well as the perception of them.

The downloadable document presents the current status of the files under review, which will allow us to update our knowledge of each of the monumental buildings.

Declarations

Declaration, 21st Century

The Official Gazette of Aragon of 18 October 2002 published the Order of 24 September 2002, of the Department of Culture and Tourism, declaring the Church of San Antonio Abad in Tauste (Zaragoza) to be a listed cultural heritage site in Aragon.

Bibliography

BARCELÓ, Noeli. More than 130,000 to eliminate damp in the church of San Antón de Tauste. Heraldo de Aragón [On line]. 03/01/2021 p. 15<https://www.heraldo.es/noticias/aragon/zaragoza/2021/01/03/mas-130-000-euros-eliminar- humedad-iglesia-san-anton-tauste-zaragoza-1413097.html<>.

GARCÍA GUINEA, Miguel Ángel; Pérez González, José María (dir.). Encyclopaedia of the Romanesque in Aragon: Zaragoza. Aguilar de Campoo: Fundación Santa María la Real,

GARCÍA LLORET, José Luis. Three little-known Romanesque doorways in the churches of San Antón in Tauste (Zaragoza), San Miguel in Almudévar (Huesca) and San Salvador in Luesia (Zaragoza). Suessetania. 1999 , no 18, p. 28-44.

MENJÓN RUIZ, Marisancho. The artistic heritage of the town of Tauste [On line]. In Tauste en su historia: Actas de las I Jornadas sobre Historia de Tauste, 13 to 17 December 1999.

Asociación Cultural El Patiaz, 2001.p. 28-61. [Accessed: 23 July 2020].<https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwYSxMNn-RKGYms3MVRwejBZeXc/vew>.

MENJÓN RUIZ, Marisancho. La iglesia de San Antón de Tauste: algunos datos sobre su historia y su restauración [On line]. In Tauste en su historia: Actas de las X Jornadas sobre

History of Tauste, 9 to 13 February 2009. Asociación Cultural El Patiaz, 2011.p. 111-152.<https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwYSxMNn-RKGQ1dTcm1XTkM1M2M/view>

MORTE GARCÍA, Carmen; Castillo Montolar, Margarita (coord.). The Renaissance altarpiece of Tauste. Zaragoza: Institución Fernando el Católico, 2012.