SAN PEDRO DE TARRASA

(See first the general description of the Episcopal Ensemble of Terrassa)

Built with the same kind of external bond than the two others, San Pedro de Terrassa is the third church of this episcopal ensemble. It is the one placed more to the north and, according to the tradition of those times, it must have been a parochial church or some dedication of a martyrial kind. In our case, as there is a martyrial crypt in San Miguel it seems more likely it was a parochial church. Original it had a basilical shape with three naves that later disappeared as of the second stretch and, as it happened with Santa María, during the restoration in Roman times only the central one was rebuilt, in this case maintaining all of its original longitude. Also, as in Santa María, the result in San Pedro is a cruciform looking church, as it has reached now, where the first stretch of lateral naves that has been preserved serves the purpose of a crossing.

A special mention deserves its chevet, trilobed shaped, both internally and externally, which makes us think that the builders had a clear interest in establishing important differences between the structures of the three churches. However, in San Pedro we see that this shape of the apse is similar to the one of the crypt of San Miguel. This type of chevet had already been utilized previously both in the East as in Africa, France and even in Évora, from which we count with its description although the church has disappeared. Also the martyrium’s four lobed of La Dehesa de La Cocosa could be a possible precedent in Spain.

During the campaign of restoration of San Pedro in 1975, a special attention was dedicated to the study of the interior of its chevet. The internal paraments were cleaned to see that the vaults were screw vaults (bóvedas de rosca) built with pieces of fired clay placed radially, something very usual in Roman architecture and whereas the lower zones are built with a very irregular bond, the upper ones are of the same kind described for the external parts, based on small ashlars placed in horizontal courses. It was also noticed that the interior of the chevet had gone through several transformations and that the original floor was in opus signinum, and was at a lower level than the mosaic described.

The outcome does not leave any doubts regarding the age of the chevet and confirms that the church had gone through several modifications previous to the installation of the altarpiece,what reduces considerably the possibility it belonged to the Carolingian period, in spite that the kind of bond could seem from those times. However, all that has been found confirms the utilization of techniques and structures already known since Roman architecture, at the same time that some of the details of great importance, such as the two apses with plan and horse shoe shaped access arch, and as the shape of the third one, San Pedro, that has a clear precedent in the 6th century’s architecture, as well as the fact that the three churches had only one apse although two of them had a three nave basilic plan, something unusual in Mozarabic and in Carolingian arts, seem to confirm with all the reservations we have exposed due to the complexity of the ensemble that has reached to these days and to the lack of a complete archeological study in the whole environment, the ideas we expose for the whole ensemble and for each one of its churches, is that everything must have been raised in the zenith stage of the bishopry, in the last half century of the Visigothic kingdom.

Historia de España de Menéndez Pidal: Tomo III
SUMMA ARTIS: Tomo VIII

L’Art Préroman Hispanique: ZODIAQUE
Ars Hispanie: Tomo II
Los Templos Visigótico-Románicos de Tarrasa: F. Torrella Niubó

Conjunto monumental de las iglesias de San Pedro de Tarrasa

Pla Director del Conjunt Monumental de les Esglésies de Sant Pere de Terrassa