Sant Ramon (english)

The Romanesque Church of El Pla de Santa Maria
A Romanesque temple built between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and declared Historic and Artistic Monument in 1951.

A construction with a Latin cross floor and a semi-circular apse, a barrel vault pointed to the nave and the chancel and groin vaults reinforced on transept arms. It combines Cistercians architecture and decoration with Languedoc and classical iconography and Byzantine art features. It stands out the portal, with a large sculptural richness, the spectacular rose window, the capitals of the apsidal basin and the cornice corbels. 

Sant Ramon, Pla de Santa Maria (Alt Camp)

The existence of the church is documented in the 1178 cartulary, known as The White Book of Santes Creus, and in Celestí III bull, in 1194, named as Ecclesiam beatae Mariae de Plano, which reveals at the same time the primeval dedication, replaced since 1859 for the Sant Ramon de Penyafort one.  In 1254, El Pla became part of the Mitra of Tarragona. Since the 29th of January of 1357, during the prelate of Pere de Clarasquí, until 1768, the archdeacon of Sant Llorenç had one house there, attached to the temple, which years later was turned into a convent. 

The construction stands above for its simplicity and the pureness of its lines, with a great balance between the constructive structure and the sculpture.  It combines Cistercians architectural and decorative elements with Languedoc and Classical iconography and some classic and byzantine attributes, typical of what is known as 1.200 Style.

The main door is composed of eight columns in degradation on each part and pilasters. The portal should be pointed out because of its classic style typical of the workshops of Tarragona and the school of Lleida. The tympanum contains only two sculpted bands: one in the bent profile, simulating a plain archivolt, and the other on the base, creating a pseudo-lintel with a great iconographic interest. The three passages of Glorification, Saint Peter bishop holding two keys and a book, the Maiestas Mariae in the centre, and Saint Joseph accompanied by the Three Kings of Orient are represented in the portal.

The rose window is an almost exact replica, smaller than the real one in Santes Creus.

The nearly one hundred fifty cornice corbels offer a wide variety of elements: masculine and feminine heads of animals or fantastic beings; half-body characters; vegetables; simple geometric motifs and some isolated objects. 

Regarding the church’s basis, the most important ones are those near the apse basin: confronted lions, one pig, neck-connected fowls, one turtle, a serpentine dragon, sphinxes and several religious scenes: saints delimited by circles that are held by diminutive characters or vegetables; three figures similar to Peter and Pau in front of Nero; a priest raising his hands in front of an altar in the presence of a monk; and finally, three episodes of Baptist’s death. The story starts with the decapitation of an executioner who emerged from a tower, where a young ballerina came with the belt on a tray. The third face of the pilaster shows Salomé, after her dance, caressed by Herodes, in an evident time reversal.