Romanesque Characteristics : 3.1. Materials.

1. Romanesque Characteristics:3.1. Materials. The stone was used primarily in the form of ashlar (dressed stone parallelepiped) or ashlar (crudely carved ashlar small). In some regions and because of their geography was used brick. It was customary, when the walls were very thick, they were built with two rows of stones, among which they threw gravel mixture of mortar and stones. It was used wood on the covers, but later it was replaced by stone. However, it was essential to lifting scaffolding and falsework, temporary structures that served as support for the construction of arches and vaults.

2. 3.2. Floor. We found examples of central plant (circular or polygonal), inherited from antiquity, but the most used is the basilica, steeped in religious buildings from the early Christian art. Floor is a 3 or 5 ships. The floor, of greater height than the side, is the active element and act as lateral discharge elements. At the height, open windows illuminate the interior. About the aisles, we can up the podium as we shall see in so-called pilgrimage churches.

3. There may be a transept, called transept, not always marked in the plan (if so, the plant is a Latin cross, a plant that will spread throughout the medieval architecture). The transept marks the separation between the space of the faithful and the sacred space of the presbytery. The space in which intersect is called cruise. The header area or sanctuary (space around the altar) and is generally semicircular apse called. Sometimes the head is formed by a large body of three or more apses, the central radiating chapels. Sometimes, for example in the churches of pilgrimage, is the ambulatory or ambulatory passage around the altar and is an extension of the aisles. In the apse and the transepts can open small shrines called apses, to multiply the trades.

4. 3.3. Elevation. Every building is built on robust Romanesque foundations, often so deep that allow the construction of vaults, funeral for a purpose under the apse. On these foundations the load-bearing support of the Romanesque building: the wall, the pillar and columns. - The Wall in the Roman plays a key role in the closure and lift, as the whole weight of the roof falls on him. The exterior is reinforced by buttresses or pads (attached to the wall construction as a pillar).Because of its support function, the walls are solid, thick (sometimes, if necessary are built with double walls and rubble in the middle), with a predominance of solid on the span, so that the surfaces are decorated inside, which will lead to the development of mural painting, and externally by elements such as moldings, pilasters ... The windows are narrow and flared.

5. The pillar is the most widely used free media because of the weight of the dome. When the churches are the separation of several ships by the pillar, a core of square or rectangular bearing on their foreheads pilasters or half columns, one of which extends across the wall of the nave to support the arc corresponding girdle. Of the remaining three, two loaded arches separating the aisles and the third by the side of the aisle holding the arch separating the vaults covering the aisles. Gradually this will complicate cruciform pillar to be added in the quarter-pillar corners attached, to be above the pillar fasciculated Gothic. • - It still uses the column, but not respecting the classical proportions and abandoning the use of the orders. The capital is extremely important for the sculptural decoration.

6. 3.4. Supported Elements. • The arc of a single center is half a circle. • The segments, wedge-shaped pieces without vertex, forming the radial arc available. The first slice is called skew. The key is the central voussoir. • The lower surface is the inner surface of the arc and the extrados which is the outer surface. • The thread or space delimited by the extrados and the intrados. • The fascia, which is the surface of which starts the arc • The arrow is the height of an arc from its start to the key light and the maximum width.

7. The cover. In the early days of the Roman wooden ceilings were used in the tradition of the Christian basilicas, but frequent fires raised the need to start using stone covered. This will be the most important contribution of Romanesque architecture, the stone vaulting throughout the building already had a background in the Visigothic art and the Spaniard. In the early eleventh century conducted the first tests of a barrel vault, the most characteristic of the Romanesque. • The barrel vault is the result of displacement of a semicircular arch along a longitudinal axis. Often reinforced by arches, which absorb in part the weight of the vault and also serve to articulate the interior space. • The vault is broken into several sections. The arches discharge their weight in the interior supports. To cover the square spaces (eg, lines through the aisles) are used the vaults, the result of perpendicular intersection of two barrel vaults.

9. 3.5. Outside. The exterior is notable for the clarity of its volume and by the perfect correspondence between the outside and inside the building. Inseparable from the exterior of the Romanesque churches are the towers, symbol of the link between God and men and testimony to the power of the Church, visible from anywhere. In Santiago there were 9 towers. In the abbey of Cluny came to be up to 10. These towers flanking the facade may appear in the center of the cruise ... Their shapes are varied: a square, circular or octagonal. Above the crossing rises the dome, square toweror octagonal.

10. 3.6. Front. • The archivolts set of arcs whose width decreases progressively flared. They displayed a rich sculptural decoration. • The jambs, vertical element in the archivolt resting, and also present sculptures. On them rests the lintel, the horizontal element along with the archivolts defines the space of the eardrum. • The eardrum is the space bounded by the archivolt and the lintel, intended to accommodate a major iconographic program of sculptural decoration. • The mullion vertical element which divides the input into two parts.

11. 3.7. PilgrimageChurchFloor. Santiago de Compostela Saint Sernin (Toulouse) Sainte Foy (Conques)