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The hermitage of Santa María de Lara

Mambrillas de Lara, Sierra de la Demanda, Burgos

1 Villages · 1 Monuments

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The hermitage of Santa María de Lara

Monument · Mambrillas de Lara, Sierra de la Demanda, Burgos

At Quintanilla de las Viñas, in the Burgos municipality of Mambrillas de Lara, the chancel and transept of an early medieval church survive, its date disputed between the 7th and 10th centuries. Its exterior friezes, carved with scrollwork, birds and clusters of grapes typical of Visigothic art, have no parallel on the Iberian Peninsula. In the 10th century a semicircular Romanesque apse was added, evidence of its long adaptation across different periods. It remained largely unrecognised until 1927, when the Burgos chronicler Luciano Huidobro attributed it a Mozarabic origin, which led to its declaration as a Monumento Nacional (a historic Spanish heritage designation, predecessor of today's Bien de Interés Cultural) on 25 November 1929 and its subsequent restoration.

Photo: Cpratsferre (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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