Eglise romane de Perse
The Romanesque church of Perse, built between the late 11th century and the start of the 12th. The church of Perse was the parish church of Espalion until the construction in the 15th century of the church Saint-Jean-Baptiste (currently Musées des Arts et Traditions populaires et du Scaphandre) at the centre of the fortified town. The church of Perse was located on one of the roads of Compostelle from Puy-en-Velay to Conques.
The church of Perse was the parish church of Espalion until the construction, in the 16th century, of the church of Saint-Jean-Baptiste (now the Musées des Arts et Traditions populaires and du Scaphandre) in the center of the fortified town. The Perse church was located on one of the Compostelle pilgrim routes leading from Le Puy-en-Velay to Conques.
The portal, with its monumental archivolt and tympanum, is, along with that of Conques, one of only two examples of large-scale sculptural decoration to be found in Romanesque Rouergue.
The tympanum itself illustrates the theme of Pentecost: the Virgin Mary receives the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove, and tongues of fire are directed towards the ten apostles.
The monolithic lintel blends the themes of the Weighing of the Souls and the Last Judgement: in the center, below the two pans of the scales whose scourge has disappeared, a dead man lies on his bed, his soul represented by a naked body fought over by angels and demons. On the right, in a mandorla, Christ is surrounded by the symbols of the four evangelists: the eagle for John, the bull for Luke, the lion for Mark and the man for Matthew. On the left, a damned man is hurled into the mouth of Leviathan at the entrance to Hell, where Satan is enthroned.
Other sculpted elements attract attention: the Adoration of the Magi at the top left of the portal, a beautiful Virgin and Child inspired by the Auvergne school, on the right above the small door. The cornice is crowned with some forty modillions. To appreciate the elegance of the polygonal chevet, you need to look down from the banks of the stream.
Inside, the triumphal arch adorned with sculpted capitals opens onto a choir ending in a five-sided apse covered by a cul-de-four vault.
Opening through the knob
