 Guide to Spanish Pre-Romanesque Art:
VILLA DE CARRANQUE
Phase/Style: Visigothic/Early Christianity Period: 4th-5th centuries State: Excavated Location: Carranque (Toledo) |
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Since the conversion of Constantino in 337, the authority in Spanish cities started to pass on from the Roman elites to the representatives of the high hierarchy church, that, together with a reduction in safety and in quality of life in the cities that the growing decline of the empire was generating, it boosted along the 4th century the displacement of big landlords to their possesions and, consequently, the buildings of the same large villas with all the complementary edification of service constructions. That was the period with the largest building effort in Spain since the middle of the 4th century until the middle of the 5th century
In order to spread an excellent example of this kind of late Roman villas in Spain, discovered by serendipity, halfway between Toledo and Madrid in 1983, the government of Castilla La Mancha has developed 
an interesting recuperation project and valuation of the multiple remains therein contained, adding an interesting interpretation centre that now, turned into the Parque Arqueológico de Carranque, has become one of the places of great interest in Spain to know the way of living and the characteristics of art in general and specially of the architecture that existed in our country by the end of the 4th century, in the last phase of the Roman Empire.
Through the information on an inscription found in the villa's main bedroom, we know that the villa belonged to Materno Cinegio, who was prefect of the East during the government of Teodosio the Great between 384 and 388, the year he died, and that his body, burried first in Constantinopla, was moved to Hispania one year later by his wife, a fervent devout.
The ensemble preserved is formed by a large basilic, considered to be the most ancient one of those existing in Spain that have been built for Christian worship; a small building with a square plan and a semicircular apse, that has been called "The Ninfeo", a large Roman villa that preserves an excellent set of tiles and a series of service buildings, among those, two mills on the bank of the Guadarrama river, and part of the infrastructure of water transport. To all of that, a parking has been added at the other side of the river and a new bridge that gives access to the new centre of interpretation, that shows a collection of pieces found in the excavations and describes the historical evolution of the place and from where, the rest of buildings may be visited.
It is a large Roman rural villa built in stone and brick, square plan of around 1000 m2, structured around
rooms may be visited; all of them paved with tiles, some of great beauty and very well preserved. The access is from a portico with arches upon columns, located between the square towers. The villa, one of the most luxurious 
that we know in Roman Spain, as it corresponds to its owner's category, had all sort of services, like running water and heating. Today the whole villa has been excavated except the service constructions that existed around. The remains of the ensemble have been covered for protection reasons and walks upon them have been fitted out for the visitors.
was a small one almost square plan temple; 9m by side, with a triangular pediment upon two columns with big capitals attached 
to the wall in the main facade and gabled roof that also leaned laterally upon three columns at each side and with a semicircular chevet at the opposite side of the entrance door. The building was built upon a pedestal of around 11m by side. In its interior there was a decorated fountain that was placed on the highest part of the environment probably for the distribution of water in the premises. Whilst the nave was covered by a barrel vault, the apse's vault was possibly a semi dome vault. The whole building was covered in its exterior with white marble and the interior had a plinth of green serpentine and paved with tessera tiles in different colours.
the ensemble. Built during the phase that intended to make Christianity become the official in Spain, by a family of fervent followers of that worship, to the extreme that Materno is remembered in History as "the scourge of pagans". This building has been considered as the most ancient Christian basilic among the ones known so far in the peninsula. As we have mentioned, Materno died in 388 and his wife moved his body to Hispania one year later, therefore it seems certain that at least the adjacent mausoleum existed already in 390. In fact, this is an authentic classical Roman basilic, which dimensions give an idea of the importance of its promoters, but built for Christian worship in a period when the Eastern influences would not appear until the 5th century with the arrival of Arrian Visigothics and Christians from
debris, though a stretch of the chevet wall has been preserved, located at the northeast as in that period the canonical orientation for Christian churches was not yet followed. The church has five perfectrly differentiated areas:
lobbed vaults and two of them ending in small semicircular apsidioles, generating a nine compartment plan forming a square to which the vestibule was added.Whilst the arms of the cross supported barrel vaults, a high lantern raised over the crossing which was also covered by a lobbed vault, decorated with a large work of tiles. This covering system of the nine compartments plus the two semicircular lateral apsidioles, must have generated externally a very complete ensemble and well balanced with roofs, out of which, the nave's ones would have been gabled roofs, and a four-valley pitched roof and higher the one of the central lantern and gabled in corner the ones of the two compartments that close the square, which turn the church of the Villa de Materno in a possible precedent of churches build much later, like 
end of the main lobby, although not communicated with it, it is supposed it had a funeral purpose, where probably the remains of Materno were burried when they were brought from Constantinopla. Its only access was gained from a complementary building attached to the basilic on the northern side of the atrium.