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In the mid-tenth century, Saint Rudesind (founder of the Monastery of San Salvador de Celanova, in the province of Ourense, in Galicia, NW of Spain), ordered to built this small chapel dedicated to St. Michael the Archangel, in memory of his brother Froila. Completed in the year 942, is a gem within the Monastery, because not only is the last vestige of the existing building at the time of the founder, but also happens to be the only Spanish high medieval monument that has not been modified since its construction.
Both its small dimensions (just 8.5 m long, 3.85 wide and 6 high) and its architectural style (mozarabic, with very tight horseshoe arches with keystones of offset axis, and surrounded by alfiz), make it a singular work within the pre-Romanesque in the north of the Iberian Peninsula. It was declared a National Monument in 1923.
It consists of three volumes: the nave, from where it is accessed, with a barrel vault, the central body (where the highest point is reached), crowned by an inner brick cross vault, and a very prominent outer overhang, with rolls brackets of Caliphate style, and an apse, square on the outside and round in the inside, topped by a dome.
Despite its apparently small windows, it should be noted how luminous its interior is. In fact, its orientation is such that it captures the light of the rising sun at the equinoxes of spring and autumn.
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