Santa María Del Naranco, Oviedo ( Spain ) Royalty-Free Stock Photography

The church of St Mary at Mount Naranco, or ¨Ilesia de Santa María`l Narancu¨, is a pre-Romanesque Asturian architecture church on the slope of Mount Naranco, at Oviedo, Asturias (Spain). Ramiro I of Asturias ordered it to be built as a royal palace as part of a larger complex that also incorporated the nearby church of San Miguel de Lillo. It was completed in 848. Its structural features, such as the barrel vault with transverse ribs corresponding one-to-one with contraforts at the exterior, make it a clear precursor of the Romanesque construction. The exterior decorations, as well as the use of stilted arches mark the intended verticality of the composition. It was converted into a church at the end of the 13th century. It was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1985.