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Cosmology and Precision in the Val d’Aran

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Abstract

This study examines an ensemble of Romanesque churches built between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries in the region of Val d’Aran, located in the Spanish Pyrenees, following the liturgy treatises of Gemma animae by Honorius Augustodunensis and the Mitralis de Officio by Sicardus, Bishop of Cremona. A group of these churches have been oriented along an East–West axis in accordance with the equinox. The mountainous topography does not allow a setting-out by observing the solar ortho, therefore, we conclude from their precision (91.41º, ± 1.91º) that they were traced using instrumental systems inherited from Vitruvius, Hyginus Gromaticus, Gisemundus, or Gerbertus Aureliacensis.

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  1. School of Architecture, Universitat Internacional Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain

    Josep Lluis i Ginovart, Cinta Lluis Teruel & Iñigo Ugalde Blázquez

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  1. Josep Lluis i Ginovart
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  2. Cinta Lluis Teruel
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  3. Iñigo Ugalde Blázquez
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Correspondence to Iñigo Ugalde Blázquez.

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Lluis i Ginovart, J., Lluis Teruel, C. & Ugalde Blázquez, I. Cosmology and Precision in the Val d’Aran. Nexus Netw J 23, 433–451 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00004-021-00551-2

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