This church is near Arles, France where Van Gogh painted a lot. I was fascinated by the three round exterior structures that are alcoves or private chapels on the inside and the way they visually and structurally support the high ceilinged nave.  It is also the first structure in which I made a round tower-like form as opposed to a square or rectangular structure.  

I discovered this wonderful structure in a book simply titled Churches by Judith Dupre. The La Cappella di Montesiepi di San Galgano was sited as a major influence for the work of internationally noted architect, Mario Botta. He is the designer of the new San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The picture was tiny but I was able to find many images on Google and I just had to do a piece on it because of the circular tower that makes of the nave of the church. I took a lot of liberties with the composition of the structure and even added buttresses, a small semi-circular alcove chapel and some delightful brickwork details. The tile roof and 22K gold leaf lantern dome accentuate the complex form of the structure.

This traditional adobe church was built between 1880 and 1891 about 13 miles SE of Santa Fe, NM at the entrance to Apache Canyon. It originally was a flat roofed structure with about 4 feet of earth over the beam and plank ceiling. The pitched metal roof was added in the early 1890’s. It had a wonderful stone buttress to the left of the front door, a tall, striking red orange wooden cross in the fenced church yard and a distinctive pitched cupola belfry.

Located in the little town of Rancho de Taos, about 5 miles outside of Taos, New Mexico this massive adobe church was completed around 1810. The church has been in continuous use since it was completed.  The mud plaster is redone every few years by the members of the church and surrounding community.  The back of the church with its massive stone and adobe buttresses is one of the most popular images of the Southwest and has been painted and photographed by such greats as Georgia O’Keeffe and Ansel Adams.

This is the tower of the private chapel that was built on sacred earth believed to have miraculous healing powers by Bernardo Abeyta around 1814. The towers are particularly distinctive because of their distinctive belfries. Abeyta commissioned several santeros, including Molleno and Jose Aragon to paint altar screens. The healing earth is contained in a small pit in a side chapel dedicated to St. Raphael the Archangel. For over 150 years, pilgrims and locals have visited the chapel for the miraculous healing earth and often leave their crutches and braces to hang on the chapel walls along with written prayers of gratitude.

The assemblage in the drawer beneath the church is by PJ Cardinale and reflects the beliefs and human connections to the everyday objects of faith.

Loretto Chapel Story

The chapel was dedicated as Our Lady of Light in 1878 under the direction of Archbishop Lamy (remember Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather). He directed the Architect Projectus Mouly to design it after his beloved Sainte-Chapelle in Paris. The stone for the Gothic chapel was quarried near the little railroad town of Lamy, NM. It was not until the chapel was almost finished that the nuns, the Sisters of Loretto, realized that there was no access to the choir loft. No one was found that could resolve the problem so the nuns began a Novena to St. Joseph and near the end of the 9 days of prayers, a gray-haired carpenter with his tools on his donkey appeared and in a matter of months built the “Miraculous” staircase. Legend has it that it was St. Joseph himself and although research has identified the builder and the wood used, the legend persists.