Our Lady of Eunate. Muruzábal. 17 x 16 x 12 cm.

Description

Model of the church of Nuestra Señora de Eunate, made of marble reconstituted with resin.

Measurements: 17 x 16 x 12 cm.

Church of Our Lady of Eunate, Muruzábal, Navarre. The solitary church of Eunate (‘the hundred doors’, in Basque) belongs to one of the most charismatic and peculiar groups of the late 12th century Navarrese Romanesque, characterised by its development based on a centralised plan. This typology, to which certain buildings correspond (for example Roncesvalles, Torres del Río and the now disappeared church of the Holy Sepulchre in Estella), has been linked to the Pilgrim’s Way as a landmark for pilgrims and a funerary evocation.

Although tradition assigns its construction to the monarch Sancho el Fuerte and the Order of the Templars, there are no objective arguments to support such a claim.

Architecturally speaking, this curious and sober building, built with large, well-carved ashlars, has an octagonal floor plan with slender columns attached to the corners and a polygonal apse on the eastern side. It is very likely that Eunate once had the lantern known as the ‘lantern of the dead’, as the staircase that led to it has been preserved. Today, a bell tower stands in its place. A free-standing octagonal arcade of Gothic chronology, although much restored in the 16th and 17th centuries, surrounds the building.