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Origin and history

The church of Saint-Pierre-ès-Liens de Martignac, located in Puy-l'Évêque in the Lot (Occitanie region), is a 12th century Romanesque building, modified in the 15th and 19th centuries. Built on a simple plan with a unique nave and a semicircular choir, it reflects the rural religious architecture of the time. Its squared bellow walls, narrow windows with loose lintels, and its sober cornice with square holes testify to medieval constructive techniques. The bell tower-wall, added later between the 13th and 15th centuries, dominates the building and preserves traces of defensive arrangements like recessed holes for beams, perhaps a heavy one.

The interior of the church was marked by a major transformation in the 15th century: the nave, originally carpented, was vaulted with ridges, and the apse retained two windows, one of which was enlarged in the south at that time. A sacristy was added to the 19th century on the northern flank, while the southern gate had an inscription attesting to a restoration in 1863 under the administration of M. Mercié. Ranked a historic monument on July 9, 1943, the church houses a statue of St.Peter referenced in the Palissy base, as well as a carved decoration limited to a impost used in the gate.

The church's reputation is based on its late 15th century murals, discovered in 1938 by the parish priest-dean Cassagne. These frescoes, carried out in a post-war context of One Hundred Years, are designed to educate a predominantly illiterate population through visual catechesis. The iconographic program, centered on the salvation of the soul, includes: at the cul-de-four of the apse, a God in Majesty surrounded by the Tetramorph, Vertus (cardinals and theologals), and a Tombing; on the north wall, the seven capital sins and the Last Judgment; on the south wall, St Michael, the Purgatory (now erased), Paradise with St Peter keeping the heavenly gate, and a Coronation of the Virgin. These works are part of a marked regional artistic movement, with parallels to Cahors, Saint-André-des-Arques or Lunegarde.

The church of Martignac, a parish mentioned in the 13th century, was annexed to the church of Saint Martin de Mazières. Its bell tower, initially open to the west, is closed by a wood section at the end of the 15th century. The paintings, although partially degraded (such as the representation of the Purgatory), remain a rare testimony of the didactic religious art of the late Middle Ages. Their discovery highlighted the importance of rural churches as a medium for transmitting Christian dogma in a society emerging from crisis.

Architecturally, the building combines Romanesque simplicity (nave without side chapels, apse in cul-de-four covered with lauzes) and Gothic or modern additions. The bolt holes aligned with the elevations recall medieval scaffolding, while the 15th century ridge vault marks a stylistic evolution. The difference in apparatus between the nave and the bell tower suggests a construction in several phases, reflecting the changing needs of the parish community over the centuries.

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