SAN LORENZO DE CORTINA

Small details like an early medieval window in a simple chapel from a later period transform a street or square with little aesthetic significance into a charming and beautiful place.

There are numerous examples where, fortunately, the disappearance or successive transformations of temples over the centuries have preserved some of the longest-standing witnesses to their history, and which have survived thanks to some wise ancestor who truly appreciated the emotion produced by the oldest carved stones. A beautiful window that once illuminated a rural church transports us to a distant time when the omnipresent and somber blanket of concrete, steel, and glass would take a while to devour almost the entire urban landscape.

The Liber Testamentorum, a codex produced during the first third of the 12th century and kept in Oviedo Cathedral, was commissioned by Bishop Pelayo to compile documents from the Diocese of Oviedo. Due to the extraordinary quality of its miniatures, it is one of the jewels of Spanish Romanesque art. It is in this cartulary that the medieval town of Avilés is first mentioned.

The existence of two churches dedicated to Saint John the Baptist and Saint Mary in Avilés is known from this period. Llaranes is mentioned in the will of Osorio, Pelayo, and Elvira Froilaz, in which they donated various properties to San Salvador de Oviedo in 1086, including the town of Leranes in the territory of Gauzón. This town of Llaranes would have had a church from the 10th-11th century, from which this window possibly comes. Saint Lawrence, the patron saint of the chapel, a martyr during the persecution of Valerian in the 3rd century, enjoyed notable devotion in the Kingdom of Asturias.

A mullioned window adorns the west facade of the current chapel. It is a rectangular limestone block with rounded upper corners, two openings, and a wide quadrangular mullion. The right jamb is slightly concave. The openings are crowned by two rings with a rope-like outline. In Asturias, Santiago de Sariego preserves a window with a certain similarity, as well as several Biscayan windows in which the upper circles stand out, such as those in Amatza, Arta, Bermejillo, Isla, Urrielu, Zaraldoa, and also in Cantabria, San Andrés de Liébana.

Although of pre-Romanesque origin, the current building dates from the 17th century. In 1601, it lost its status as a parish church when it was annexed to San Nicolás de Bari. The bell gable was added in the 1950s, as was the bell. In the restoration carried out in recent years, the north and east walls were filled with cement, so some remaining vestiges of windows similar to the one at the end wall may have been hidden.

In 2006, the worker in charge of painting the walls and ceiling discovered geometric ochre paintings imitating ashlars distributed over a large area of ​​the chapel. Neither the baptismal font nor the cemetery, which undoubtedly existed nearby according to archaeological excavations, are preserved. The façade is built in ashlar with corners finished with a rope and header. Above the entrance door, ashlars are arranged vertically in what appears to be the structure of a relieving arch.

Arte Prerrománico en Asturias. César García de Castro Valdés. Ménsula Ediciones.

http://www.lne.es/aviles/2009/12/15/patrimonio-artistico-san-lorenzo-cortina/847912.html

http://www.parroquiadellaranes.org/slmemoriageneral.pdf