Église Saint-Cernin

English translation

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Description

The Romanesque church (late 12th early 13th century) formed a rectangle bringing together nave and choir with flat chevet, supported at each end by buttresses, dominated to the west by a bell-wall and pierced to the south by a portal consisting of wide voussures resting on small columns by means of capitals decorated with foliage and interlace, in the style of those at Lascelle, Laroquevieille, Girgols and Saint-Martin-Cantalès. At the end of the 14th century, a covered fortified porch surmounted by a small room was placed in front of the south portal. In the 15th century, the building was entirely remodeled, with raising of the Romanesque walls of the nave, which was covered with rib vaults whose spring lines were embedded in the masonry of the side walls. Six lateral chapels also vaulted with ribs were added on either side of the nave. On the occasion of these remodeling works, the Romanesque corbels and their dentiled cornices were displaced. A first series was placed as coping on the walls of the south lateral chapels. It comprises seven elements: five corbels with chip-carving (some remade) copied from external models (Limousin or Lower Auvergne?) and which are found again in Cantal at Riom-ès-Montagne and Trizac, and two figurative corbels representing an animal gripping prey with its jaws and a human bust with hands placed on the lower belly. A second series, also partially remade, adorns the south side of the chevet. Six corbels can be seen successively depicting a horse's head with its bridles, a bust of a knight holding sword and shield, a wild boar's snout, a cow leaning on its turned-back paws as if rising up, an owl and a crouching monkey. Three corbels with chip-carving complete this series, one placed at the beginning, one in the middle and the last at the end. In 1606, an important restoration campaign was carried out, which brought significant modifications to the arrangements of the 15th century. Thus, above the three south chapels, the side wall was pierced with three oculi, in order to give the nave direct lighting. In 1808, the church council of Saint-Cernin purchased twenty-four stalls from the chapter convent of Saint-Chamant. Ten of them were resold shortly after by the curate to the church council of Saint-Illide. The remaining fourteen were installed in the choir of Saint-Cernin. In 1822, a complete survey of the building (sections and plans) was carried out by Lacaze, architect of the town of Aurillac "to show the causes of the separation of the side walls and the subsidence of the nave vault produced by the defective and poor construction of the roof structure, whose principal rafters of the trusses were not assembled on a tie-beam and bore falsely on its vault". The upper parts of the bell tower, demolished in 1793, were rebuilt in 1823 (and repaired in 1867). It was probably during the campaign of works in 1823 that boarding replaced the vaults of the nave which were collapsing. In 1880, a brick rib vault replaced the provisional boarding of 1823.