San Adrián de Moneixas. Evolución de la iglesia y estudio de su singular pintura mural

Abstract

The church of Saint Adrian of Moneixas (Lalín – Pontevedra) was originally a Romanic factory dated about 1170. From that time, it only keeps the arch leading to the High Chapel and the columns on which the arch rests. The columns end in decorated capitals. Between the second and third quarter of the eighteenth century the church suffered several reparations, and it was provided with a sacristy, a window in the apse, two new chapels, the main altarpiece and other three retables and the bell gable -all of them in baroque style. In 1960 the church is completely transformed - a Sanctuary-Chapel was built as if it was a second nave, and it was dedicated to the Third Carmelite Order. Inside the wall of the apse epistle and because of some works, there appeared an original mural painting, unknown up to now. We think that it can be dated as belonging to the late fifteenth century or very early in the sixteenth. It represents the Flagellation of Christ, with the particularity that it follows an unusual pattern in Spain taken from the Speculum Humanae Salvationis, in which Christ appears tied to a palm tree while two men belonging to the brotherhood of the “executioners” “sayones” are whipping him.