Word: altars
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Because the Catalan churches lay in a backward area, they remained almost unchanged through the centuries, were not rebuilt in later styles. In recent decades most of the frescoes and painted wood altar fronts have been moved into museums at Vich and Barcelona to stop further deterioration and to permit careful studies by art scholars. The best that is left of this all but forgotten chapter from the past has now been reproduced in oversized format (18 in. by 13 in.) in Spain, Romanesque Paintings, published by the New York Graphic Society ($16.50) as part of the UNESCO World...
...Michael Weighing the Souls (opposite), a side panel on an altar of a small church in the Ribes Valley, was painted (by an unknown artist) with all the suspense of a morality play acted out upon a stage. The good saint is seen in the act of weighing souls with the Devil, before a splendid red background decorated with gold stars. Michael has caught the Devil cheating by tipping the scales, and sadly points a shaming finger. Yet to be discovered is the lesser devil compounding the crime by tugging on the weight devil's tail...
Within the Constantinian church, and buried under the high altar of the Renaissance church that succeeded it in the 16th and 17th centuries, is another piece of commanding archaeological evidence: a small, three-niched shrine set up between 160 and 170, roughly a century and a half before Constantine started building. Called the Aedicula (meaning little room or shrine), it was used as the focal point of Constantine's church, and was the only structure not razed to ramp level by the church builders. As Constantine's architects did 150 years later, the builders of the Aedicula...
...below, entered the subsurface grave, the shrine had been altered almost beyond recognition: the two upper niches had been combined to form the present Niche of the Pallia, two small chapels, the Covered and Open Confessio, had been added, and the whole shrine was encased by the present high altar...
...begins at 5:45 in the morning, when the members of the Community arise. Matins, Lauds, Prime, and Preparation for Mass take place at half-past six. Priests then offer the Holy Sacrifice. The daily public Mass begins at 7:30.6The gilded wood altar screen above above is believed to have originated in the early 15th Century Venice. Members of the monastery, however, are still engaged in efforts to discover its history...