Church of Saint-Pierre de Blesle (France)

The medieval village of Blesle, near Massiac in the french department of Haute-Loire, features a superb roman church : Saint-Pierre de Blesle (fr). It has wonderful sculpted knotwork tympana over some of the windows and a lot of detailed capitals and modilions with foliage, human, monstrous and animal figures interlacing.

The interior of the church is fully painted and also features some interlaced motifs and capitals.

Very detailed tympanum with a foilage knotwork over one of te windows

Left side of the tympanum. At the base of the arc, we can see interlaced foliage. — Sculpted capital on the Blesle church representing a woman breastfeeding a snake and a salamander

Right side of the interlaced tympanum. At the base of the arc, there is a sculpted capital with human figures holding hands, possibly dancing. — Sculpted capital on the Blesle church representing a woman breastfeeding a snake and a salamander

The interior is fully painted and features very detailed carved capitals

According to the Bulletin Monumental of 1929, the church is adopting the roman style of the Auvergne region (fr) and could probably be from mid-late XII^th century or even later. The author deems possible that it could be an even more late example of the roman style (I’d have to read more on the subject to see what are the current estimates).

The high quality and details of the sculpted capitals, compared to those of nearby similar monuments, could be attributed to sculptors coming from the south of France, which could explain the differences.