Outside the city walls, the Basilica of San Vicente was built in Caleno granite in a way that was greatly conditioned by the lie of the land and in the place where tradition situates the martyrdom and burial of Vincent, Sabina and Cristeta. It is the prime model of the Romanesque style in Ávila and its measured proportions make it a unique example of the Hispanic Romanesque style. With its outside influences and the influence of the cathedral construction, it is also the propagator of the style in the town.
It has a Latin-cross layout with three six-section naves and one transept. Interestingly, it also has a Gothic clerestory on the side naves. The narrow upper end, with its three apses, stands on a liturgical funeral crypt.
The construction began around 1120 with the building of the main body up to the west entrance; the towers and narthex of the entrance were built between 1150 and 1170 and the side naves were closed off with depressed quarter-barrel vaults; a ribbed vault was built above the central nave in Gothic style. The apse was covered with an octagonal vault halfway through the 13th century.
The storiated capitals of the main chapel, the cenotaph of the saints (by Fruchel and dating from the mid-12th century), showing the arrest, sentencing and martyrdom of Saints Vincent, Sabina and Cristeta, the west porch and the southern cornice stand as the best examples of Romanesque sculpture in the church and also in the town. The porticoed gallery was built on the south front in the 15th century.
San Vicente was the first Spanish building to be restored in historicist style, with work by Hernández Callejo, Vicente Miranda and, above all, Repullés y Vargas from the mid-19th century to the first quarter of the 20th century.The crypt boasts a statue of the Madonna of La Soterraña (15th century), which was venerated by St Teresa of Jesus.
References:The Kalozha church of Saints Boris and Gleb is the oldest extant structure in Hrodna. It is the only surviving monument of ancient Black Ruthenian architecture, distinguished from other Orthodox churches by prolific use of polychrome faceted stones of blue, green or red tint which could be arranged to form crosses or other figures on the wall.
The church is a cross-domed building supported by six circular pillars. The outside is articulated with projecting pilasters, which have rounded corners, as does the building itself. The ante-nave contains the choir loft, accessed by a narrow gradatory in the western wall. Two other stairs were discovered in the walls of the side apses; their purpose is not clear. The floor is lined with ceramic tiles forming decorative patterns. The interior was lined with innumerable built-in pitchers, which usually serve in Eastern Orthodox churches as resonators but in this case were scored to produce decorative effects. For this reason, the central nave has never been painted.
The church was built before 1183 and survived intact, depicted in the 1840s by Michał Kulesza, until 1853, when the south wall collapsed, due to its perilous location on the high bank of the Neman. During restoration works, some fragments of 12th-century frescoes were discovered in the apses. Remains of four other churches in the same style, decorated with pitchers and coloured stones instead of frescoes, were discovered in Hrodna and Vaŭkavysk. They all date back to the turn of the 13th century, as do remains of the first stone palace in the Old Hrodna Castle.
In 2004, the church was included in the Tentative List of UNESCO"s World Heritage Sites.