San Galgano Abbey

–Listed below are examples of surviving buildings in Romanesque style in Europe, sorted by modernday countries.

Romanesque architecture expands in France through monasteries. Burgundy was the center of monastic life in France - one of the most important Benedictine monastery of medieval Europe was the one in Cluny. The pilgrimage also contributed to expansion of this style. Many pilgrims passed through France on their way to Santiago de Compostela.

French Romanesque schools of architecture, which are specific for every region, are characterised by the variety of stone vaulting.

In Italy, the prevalent diffusion is in Lombardy, in Emilia - Romagna, in Tuscany, in the continental part of Veneto and in Apulia; everyone of these "Romanesque styles" has proper characteristics, for constructing methods and for materials. For example, a characteristic of Romanesque is that to change the classic elements with Christian elements, but in Tuscany and Apulia the classic decoratings remain.

Materials depended from the local disponibility, because the importation was too expensive. In fact, in Lombardy the most used material is ceramic, because of the argillous nature of the terrain; but that is not true for Como, where there were large diponibility of stone; in Tuscany buildings in white marble (from Carrara) are frequent, with inserts of green serpentin marble.

In Lombardy and Emilia, in that age united, in Romanesque epoque there was a great artistic flowering. The most monumental churches and cathedrals are often built with the campata system, with varying columns which weigh a tutto sesto arcos. In plain the material of construction is prevalently the mattone, but buildings in stone do not lack. The greater part of the Roman cities along the via Emilia is equipped in this age of monumental cathedral, between which they already maintain to the medieval system.

Abruzzo

Aosta Valley

Emilia-Romagna

Friuli-Venezia Giulia

Latium

Lombardy

Marche

Piedmont

Puglia

Sardinia

Sicily

Tuscany

Umbria

Veneto

Romanesque first developed in Spain in the 10th and 11th centuries and before Cluny`s influence, in Catalonia (Lleida, Barcelona, Tarragona and Girona) and Huesca and in the Aragonese Pyrenees, simultaneously with the north of Italy, into what has been called "First Romanesque" or "Lombard Romanesque". It is a very primitive style, whose characteristics are thick walls, lack of sculpture and the presence of rhythmic ornamental arches.

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Wikipedia