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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Blue439" data-source="post: 824692" data-attributes="member: 53455">Saint-Paulien in Auvergne (central France) is a bourg: too large to be a village, too small to be a town, it sits in-between with about 2,400 inhabitants.  Bourgs almost always have a church, as they were, for times immemorial, the place where the seat of the parish was located. Those churches, which may occasionally be very old and extremely lovely to behold and visit, are always proportionate to the size of the congregation and its financial means; i.e., relatively small —unless, that is, you start talking monastery, and then, as we have seen above, all stops are pulled.That is not the case in Saint-Paulien. The bourg is modest, yet the church is enormous and features a unique characteristic that sets it entirely apart from all other French churches. No one truly knows how come such a giant church was ever built, nor who had the financial means, not only to erect it, but to commission the genius architect and masons who brought it into existence. Dedicated to Saint George, it was built during the 1100s and most of it is typical Auvergnat Romanesque style. It is when you step inside that you are likely to fall back onto your rear end out of amazement: this gigantic, cavernous, single-nave church is absolutely pillar-less and features an enormously heavy barrel vault of dark, solid basalt stone that spans a whopping 16 meters without any kind of support, along the whole length of the nave...!There is not one single column in sight to obstruct the view nor the elevation of the mind through meditation. Look at the length of those pews...!Think that the main nave of Cluny III, the largest church in all Christendom before Saint Peter’s of Rome was rebuilt in 1506–1626 , only spanned 14 meters... Saint Peter's span is bigger but it is Renaissance church, and it is segmented... Saint-Paulien is not. Granted, Cluny III was a lot wider overall, but it had two aisles on each side of the main nave, each with their own vault and support system (columns and arches). The central nave was narrower than the single nave of the Saint George church in the humble bourg of Saint-Paulien.This is a UNESCO World Heritage-caliber achievement, yet you rarely see more than a couple of tourists around, and very often you have it all to yourself! It is almost scary to be in there.And Needa, if you remember your question about the basilica of Aime and the filled archways along the side walls, well you see the exact same arches here, with enormous square pillars, and for the exact same reason: to provide support for the vault’s weight.You will also notice that the choir and apse are off-center with respect to the axis of the nave: they lean to the left. You see that in some churches, and of course it is not a mistake, here even less than anywhere else, given the level of expertise we see at work; in fact, tradition holds that since the choir and apse are meant to symbolize the head of Christ, the nonalignment imitates the way Jesus’s head was leaning to one side as he died on the Cross.Nikon Z7, Nikkor 19mm, ƒ/4 PC-E tilt-shift lens, Gitzo tripod, Benro geared head. Natural light, single exposure.[ATTACH=full]410836[/ATTACH]</blockquote>

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