Iglesia del monasterio de Armenteira

The temple is a big building with three naves and a tripartite front piece, with a dome in the crossing and a great monumental façade. In the temple one can see, both in the floor plan and in the domes, a greater attachment to the Romanesque forms than in other later Cistercian monasteries. It has a magnificent architectonic quality. The people in charge of the building process deliberately added a total decoration nudity, except in the capitals and brackets of the door.  It Is a complete paradigm of the Cistercian strictness and their obedience to Saint Bernard’s rules of not interfering with ornament distractions in the process of meditation or the prayers of the monks.   The three naves of the church have five sections and are separated by pointed arches supported by cruciform pillars with attached pilasters. The central nave and the transept are covered by a pointed barrel vault, while the lateral naves have groin vaults. The lantern tower is somewhat particular and not frequent in Galicia, as it is built over the crossing or intersection between the central nave and the transept and serves to illuminate the church’s heart with the light that goes through its four big windows. On top of the crossing’s toral arches that form a square there is cantilevered vault that turns its base into a octagon. The most particular characteristic of this vault is that it is supported by two pairs of parallel arches that don’t met in the middle, but form a square. The front piece is a noble and austere ensemble formed by three stepped apses. In the calculated austerity of the church, the façade is the most delicate part of the temple. The gable is divided in three parts by two big buttresses. In the central part, there is a big portal with six great semicircular archivolts supported by pairs of small columns. The archivolts are torus-shaped with a chequered line. The last one has a serrated edge, while the frame is also chequered. The capitals of these columns are decorated with leaves with balls on the edges. Above it, the magnificent rose window illuminates the nave.