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la Vera Cruz
Its atypical form and its strange location (isolated in an inhospitable place), have always drawn attention, mainly of people interested in esoteric subjects.
One of the curiosities of this church is that everybody says that it has a octogonal plan ... but the fact is that it is dodecagonal: it has not eight but twelve sides. It is dodecagonal with three semicircular apses attached, one sacristy, also semicircular, and one tower of square cross section. Its most direct model is the church of Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem: as much in form as in function; this church was not constructed to be a parish church nor a monastic chapel: it is rather a sanctuary ... or more precisely, a "martyrium": a temple consecrated to the memory of the death and resurrection of Christ. In the popular view, its origin is bound to the knights templars. The church was consecrated in 1208. In 1531, the church became property of the Holy Order of the Hospital of Saint-John of Jerusalem and Malta.
Like almost everything in Segovia, the Vera Cruz (True Cross) also has its legends:
One says that just when the church had been inaugurated, a horseman of the order died and that he was left within the church during the night before being buried. In negligence, the other brothers of the order left the corpse alone ... rooks entered the church and showed no mercy with the body, which was destroyed. Upon returning, the prior of the order raised the roof and simultaneously frightened the birds, uttering a curse so that they did not return to the church ... the legend assures us that nobody has since seen rooks on the tile roof of the Vera Cruz (True Cross).
la Vera Cruz
Its atypical form and its strange location (isolated in an inhospitable place), have always drawn attention, mainly of people interested in esoteric subjects.
One of the curiosities of this church is that everybody says that it has a octogonal plan ... but the fact is that it is dodecagonal: it has not eight but twelve sides. It is dodecagonal with three semicircular apses attached, one sacristy, also semicircular, and one tower of square cross section. Its most direct model is the church of Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem: as much in form as in function; this church was not constructed to be a parish church nor a monastic chapel: it is rather a sanctuary ... or more precisely, a "martyrium": a temple consecrated to the memory of the death and resurrection of Christ. In the popular view, its origin is bound to the knights templars. The church was consecrated in 1208. In 1531, the church became property of the Holy Order of the Hospital of Saint-John of Jerusalem and Malta.
Like almost everything in Segovia, the Vera Cruz (True Cross) also has its legends:
One says that just when the church had been inaugurated, a horseman of the order died and that he was left within the church during the night before being buried. In negligence, the other brothers of the order left the corpse alone ... rooks entered the church and showed no mercy with the body, which was destroyed. Upon returning, the prior of the order raised the roof and simultaneously frightened the birds, uttering a curse so that they did not return to the church ... the legend assures us that nobody has since seen rooks on the tile roof of the Vera Cruz (True Cross).