Showing posts with label Map. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Map. Show all posts

Saturday, 20 February 2016

Staff announcement

Picasa : exit
Recently I received some rather disturbing information: the Picasa software, in which I have produced tens if not hundreds of photo albums, will most likely ceased to exist in the near future, and will be replaced by Google Photos.
Because it is not entirely clear what is going to happen exactly, I have occupied myself for a while reorganising (which was no bad thing anyway) and renaming my old Picasa albums into Google Photos, and consequently changing all links to albums on my maps with Romanesque churches as well as the links in this blog.
A hell of a job, and it is not unlikely that I have missed some links, which obviously will not work anymore. Any constructive comments on this matter will be appreciated.

The links can be found on the following blogs:
Blog NL Romaanse bouwkunst in Bourgogne
Blog GB : Romanesque Architecture in Burgundy

Google Photos : enter
More links can be found on the following maps with Romanesque churches:

Bourgogne:
Département Côte-d'Or (21)
Département Nièvre (58)
Département Saône-et-Loire (71)
Département Yonne (89)

Bordering Bourgogne (an arbitrary choice):
Département Ain (01
Département Allier (3)
Département Aube (10)
Département Cher (18)
Départementen Jura & Haute-Saône (39 & 70)
Département Loire (42)
Département Loiret (45)
Département Haute-Marne (52)
Département Rhône (69)
Département Seine-et-Marne (77)

Other maps:
Romaanse kerken in Europe (an arbitrary choice):
Site Clunisiens in Europe
Byzantine churches in Europe and the Middle East (an arbitrary choice):

Friday, 19 February 2016

Picturealbums (for map of Europe) per French department

01R Ain (absent)
02R Aisne
03R Allier
04R Alpes-de-Haute-Provence
05R Hautes-Alpes
06R Alpes-Maritimes (absent)
07R Ardèche
08R Ardennes
09R Ariège
10R Aube

11R Aude
12R Aveyron
13R Bouches-du-Rhône
14R Calvados
15R Cantal
16R Charentes
17R Charente-Maritime
18R Cher
19R Corrèze
20R Corse

21R Côte-d'Or
22R Côtes-d'Armor
23R Creuse
24R Dordogne
25R Doubs (absent)
26R Drôme
27R Eure
28R Eure-et-Loir
29R Finistère
30R Gard

31R Haute-Garonne
32R Gers
33R Gironde
34R Hérault
35R Ille-et-Vilaine
36R Indre
37R Indre-et-Loire
38R Isère
39R Jura (absent)
40R Landes

41R Loir-et-Cher
42R Loire
43R Haute-Loire
44R Loire-Atlantique
45R Loiret
46R Lot
47R Lot-et-Garonne
48R Lozère
49R Maine-et-Loire
50R Manche

51R Marne
52R Haute-Marne
53R Mayenne
54R Meurthe-et-Moselle (absent)
55R Meuse
56R Morbihan
57R Moselle
58R Nièvre
59R Nord
60R Oise

61R Orne
62R Pas-de-Calais
63R Puy-de-Dôme
64R Pyrenées-Atlantiques
65R Hautes-Pyrénées
66R Pyrénées-Orientales
67R Bas-Rhin
68R Haut-Rhin
69R Rhône
70R Haute-Saône

71R Saône-et-Loire (absent)
72R Sarthe
73R Savoie
74R Haute-Savoye (absent)
75R Paris (absent)
76R Seine-Maritime
77R Seine-et-Marne
78R Yvelines
79R Deux-Sèvres
80R Somme (absent)

81R Tarn
82R Tarn-et-Garonne
83R Var (absent)
84R Vaucluse
85R Vendée
86R Vienne
87R Haute-Vienne
88R Vosges
89R Yonne
90R Belfort (absent)

91R Essone
92R Hauts-de-Seine
93R Seine-Saint-Denis (absent)
94R Val-de-Marne (absent)
95R Val d'Oise

Wednesday, 4 February 2015

Byzantine churches

When I was more or less finished with the map of Romanesque churches outside Burgundy and within Europe, I got the bright idea to incorporate one of the remaining pages of van Boxtel’s website, the one about "Byzantine churches", on this map as well. That was a bit more work than anticipated, and the result was a bit disappointing, partially caused by the fact that standard software utensils I had used so far all of a sudden were no longer available.

The "old" map of  Europe
To figure out how on earth to work with the revised software I decided to produce a separate map for the Byzantine churches. That turned out to be quite successful, were it not that I could only see the map on my screen when I was logged in as the owner of the map; if I was not logged in I could not view the map. After a lot of trying, cursing and swearing (I was on the verge of throwing my PC through the window) I finally found, hidden deep inside the software, an option to make the map publicly accessible. The next step, but I will wait a while with that one, is to remove the Byzantine churches from the Romanesque map. Here follows a very concise introduction to this new map.

Byzantine churches in Europe and the Middel East
Other than the Burgundian pages, this page did not claim any form of completeness. It really was a subjective choice of the maker of this site, and not a choice based on the "best", the "best preserved" the "historically most interesting buildings in an area".

Colours per country, towns alphabetically ordered
1. The pins have the same colour per country , hence green is Italy, red is Turkey, etc.



2. The place names are alphabetically ordered per country.













A typical entry
Typical entry
3. Each entry (hence each church or building) has at least one picture, in most cases copied from van Boxtels website, where possible however taken from my own stock in various Picasa Albums. If the latter is the case a link to the appropriate album is included. Also the accuracy of the location on the map is given : 100% is spot on, 50% means in the right town,


but exact location unknown to me.


The link to the website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle can be found here.

Sunday, 11 January 2015

The world is bigger than just Burgundy!

Some people are not very broadminded when it comes to their judgement of architecture, music, art, etc. In itself there is not much wrong with that stand point; it only becomes a bit of a menace when people try to inflict their taste on others.
Interesting in its own right!
I hope I am not so narrow minded when it comes to appreciating art. A good way to check that statement presented itself when I started digitalising my old slides. Over the years I had built up a collection of a good 10600 of those now almost obsolete pictures, taken in Europe, Asia and North-America. Whilst scanning however, I came across a far bigger number of Romanesque churches than I remembered having ever seen. And since it is nicer to share something than to keep it for oneself, I send a list of all my slides to the creator of "Bourgogne Romane”,who turned out to be interested in a number of my old slides. And again several of my pictures appeared on the webpage “L'Europe Romane”, a collection of more or less randomly chosen churches for which pictures were available.

Map of Europe
Other than the Burgundian pages, this page did not claim any form of completeness. It really was a subjective choice of the maker of this site, and not a choice based on the "best", the "best preserved" the "historically most interesting buildings in an area".
Colours per country
And since I am really keen on knowing where to find something (be it a town or a building) I decided to create still another map. In the mean time this map, which started off as just another thing to keep myself busy, has grown more than I thought it would. And even though there are still buildings being added, the map is roughly ready for use. And of course that requires a concise instruction for use. Well, here we go!

1. The pins have the same colour per country , hence lightblue is France, purple is Great Britain, etc.



Place names alphabetically
2. The place names are alphabetically ordered per country.














Typical entry
3. Each entry (hence each church or building) has at least one picture (the baptistère in Firenze e.g. has 3 pictures attached), in most cases copied from van Boxtels website, where possible however taken from my own stock in various Picasa Albums. If the latter is the case a link to the appropriate album is included. Also the accuracy of the location on the map is given : 100% is spot on, 50% means in the right town, but exact location unknown to me.


Two types of pins
4. On the maps I have used pins with a black spot for churches of which only van Boxtel possessed pictures, and pins without a black dot for buildings we both had pictures of.










Roma
5. To more or less complete the references to "Bourgogne Romane" a link has been provided to van Boxtel's separate pages "The ancient churches of Rome", "Pisan Romanesque Art" and "The ancient churches of Ravenna".















The region of Burgundy
6. In the centre of the 4 departments that make up the region of Burgundy the coat of arms of each deparrtment is displayed with reference to the detailed page of Bourgogne Romane and my detailed map of that department.







The link to the website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle can be found here.

Saturday, 22 November 2014

It is finished

It must have been in July 2012 when I tried to get in touch with Eduard van Boxtel about his site “Bourgogne Romane”.

Orangerie - Cluny
Ever since that day a steady stream of emails went up and down between Chazelle and Rotterdam at first, Amsterdam later, with questions, answers, remarks, but mainly with pictures of Romanesque buildings in (for the biggest part) Saône-et-Loire. It started off with transferring pictures which I had in stock for possible future use on our own website. After I started studying van Boxtel’s website in greater detail I came across a number of buildings I did not know yet, but which seemed worth a visit.

Former church, now habitat - Ciergues
This soon lead to an interesting day out looking for a specific church, a quest for remains of Romanesque houses in Cluny, a long and tiring search for former churches almost unrecognisable due to renovations into a habitat, several expeditions in search of a chapel which was mentioned somewhere, but which could not be traced on any map (nor in real life after inquiring with the locals, I might add).
In the meantime, after having gotten the hang of it, I started to plot out all churches mentioned on “Bourgogne Romane” in Google Maps, which gave me even more inspiration for even more search actions…

Romanesque churches in 71
In short, the contact I built up with van Boxtel kept me until a few weeks ago off the streets (as it did van Boxtel, because he meticulously studied the pictures I sent him and put them on his site when appropriate), and it gave me and my better half, despite a bit of aggravation every so often with local authorities who did not want to play ball, two years of pleasure and satisfaction. But all good things come to an end, and even though a very small number of items on “Bourgogne Romane” still has not been solved by us (due to a combination of not interesting enough, not findable, too far away, and/or not accessible), I dare say that Romanesque Saône-et-Loire has been almost completely covered by us on the map as well as in real life with pictures.

That's all that rests in 71, folks...
That does not mean that there is nothing more to be visited; revisits sometimes bring unexpected surprises, but the big bulk of work has been done. A comparison between the number of 6, 5, 4 and 3-star churches which are covered with a separate page by van Boxtel in Saône-et-Loire, Côte-d’Or, Nièvre en Yonne speaks volumes. I really do like statistics, and that results in the following percentages (the percentage of churches with a link to one of van Boxtel's web pages related to the number of churches on his overall list):

Saône-et-Loire : 68% (281 of 411 churches) Bourgogne Romane resp. Google Maps.

Côte d’Or : 25% (76 of 306 churches) Bourgogne Romane resp. Google Maps.

Yonne : 21% (49 of 228 churches) Bourgogne Romane resp. Google Maps.

Nièvre : 16% (30 of 185 churches) Bourgogne Romane resp. Google Maps.

The 68% for S&L is rather conservative. In the category 1 or 2 star churches van Boxtel possesses pictures of the majority of those churches, but this material has not (yet) been translated into a web page. When I consider all placenames of which I am sure van Boxtel has pictures, the percentage all of a sudden goes up to 97% (400 of 411 churches).

Somewhere here lies a motte féodale - Loisy
How many churches in Saône-et-Loire already had their own web page before I started my contributions I cannot (unfortunately) retrieve. A cautious estimate is between 25 and 50%.
This however does not mean the end of this blog; during my trips I have stumbled upon sufficient interesting material to keep me going for a while. Hence: will be continued!

Revisit : capitals - Saint-Bonnet-de-Cray
The link to the website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle can be found here.

Saturday, 14 June 2014

History and statistics

As mentioned earlier, this blog has strong links with "Le Site sur l'Art Romane en Bourgogne".

It all started with Chazelle
Even though I was already interested in Romanesque architecture, also possessing a not insignificant number of photographs of Romanesque churches in many villages in the department Sâone-et-Loire, my picture collection started to be taken more seriously when I started to study the above mentioned site a bit more in detail. The first serious step was creating an interactive map with "all" Romanesque churches in the area. The next step was a logical one: create similar maps for the remaining three Burgundian departments. But, since Sâone-et-Loire is my homebase, and not exactly unknown territory, I concentrated heavily on this area.

Cluny followed quickly
My first contact with the webmaster of the above mentioned site, Eduard van Boxtel, goes back to approx. August 2012, after which date I started to transfer bulky batches of photographs to the Netherlands.
May 2013 my interactive map for 71 was ready, and then it became challenging to visit those places of which neither van Boxtel nor I possessed any photographs. Of course there were plenty of places I had never even heard of, but when you start near home it does not take long to scrap places off the list as "being done".
At the moment my cooperation with van Boxtel has been going for almost 2 years, and I managed to complete his list of 4-star churches as wel as that of 3-star churches with my photographs; hence it is time to make up the balance.

Interactive map 71
Sâone-et-Loire boasts in total roughly 456 small and bigger Romanesque churches or buildings, of which it is partly (33%) unknown whether there are Romanesque remains at all. Of these 456 churches I have visited, before and after 2012, 391 churches, which is 86%. Of those 391 churches van Boxtel has chosen 231 buildings of which he has used one or more of my pictures for his site "Bourgogne Romane". That makes up for 51% of the total number, and 59% of the churches I took pictures of. These figure are a bit obscure, since van Boxtel does not prepare separate picture pages for every and each church he considers to be a 1-star or 2-star church. It means however, that if I wanted or could complete van Boxtel's collection, there are about 65 churches still to be visited.

Former church / habitat - Confrançon
There is a snag in this figure of 65. Of a small number of churches it is only known that they are located in a certain village or hamlet. In some cases the remains of these churches are hidden inside a habitat, or even completely revamped into a residential house. Some good examples (and there are more!) are the unfindable chapel in Laives, or the church in the hamlet of Vincelles near Nanton. Neither of them could be found, at least not without assistance of a local historian, and even a local person we addressed in the street had never heard of remains of churches or chapels around there.


Former church / habitat - Ciergues
The bottom line is, that there are still approx. 50 churches on my list. Amongst those there is one 3-star church, one 1-star church and there are three 2-star churches. Those are churches of which van Boxtel (still) has more information than I have. The rest of the churches to be visited fall under the category "still to be studied, before an assessment can be made". And then there are still some churches which could be interesting inside, but which were closed during a previous visit. For those it is a matter of returning one day the town hall is open (sometimes only 4 hours a week!) to ask for the key.

Chapelle Saint-Pierre? - Jalogny
Slowly the net around the churches of 71 is closing in around the "unknown" churches of 71. And one day I hope another email will arrive, similar to the one quoted below:
"Hi, Cees,
A festive instant: all 3-star churches of S&L have a page on my site! Of this I am very proud, and I would like to thank you again, because thanks to your enormous contribution this has been realised a lot quicker than I had anticipated."
And that is a nice boost, is it not?

Chapelle and source Saint-Nizier? - Jalogny
A good base of operations for search for Romanesque churches in 71 is :La Tuilerie de Chazelle.

Saturday, 3 May 2014

Giving up so easily?

One of the things I have been looking for for a long time, and which I never found, is the Chapelle Saint-Nizier near or in Jalogny.
The only clue I had came from ”Le site sur l'Art Roman en Bourgogne”; the chapel or remains thereof were near a source named after Saint-Nizier. Since Jalogny is not such a big place we decided to give it a go.

Somewhere around here....
The church of Jalogny we had found during previous missions without any apparent problems. A certain chapelle Saint-Pierre (in ruins), located on top of a hill with the same name was already a bit trickier. The hill was indicated on the map, however, we did not find one trace of a chapel. Of course the remains could be hiding in the bushes on the top of the hill, or in someone’s back garden, or even under a newly built house.
In the village itself we found a source or fountain, but that one was called Fontaine des Chèvres. That seemed to be the end of our quest. Until I discovered, that the French internet site Geoportail, Google Earth’s small cousin, not only had aerial views or satellite pictures available, but also a wide range of different maps with a wide diversity of accuracy. One of the available options was the IGN map, not dissimilar to an ordnance survey map. On this IGN map, in between Jalogny and Vaux, there was a field with the name Saint-Nizier printed on it.

Aerial photograph of roughly the same area
Once, while we were in the vicinity, we met a farmer on a tractor. He knew about a source on the edge of the forest, not far from where we met him (see the red circle with no. 1 written in it in the bottom IGN map). We decided to drive in the direction the farmer had indicated, towards the circle with 4 written by it, turned right there, and turned right again at the next crossing (with 323 written by it), entering the forest. Underway we had seen nothing of interest, and due to the weather and the amount of water that had saturated the soil it was not feasible to enter the forest, and a drive along the edge of the forest revealed nothing at either side of the road.
When we got home I studied the map again, this time finding a blue dotted line along this road: water! Where there is smoke, there is fire, and where there is water there must be a source somewhere. During a trip with better weather and soil conditions we investigated this option, went into the forest, looked for the brook, but all to no avail (see the ellips with 2 written by it).

Cassini : Saint-Nizier is to the right of Vaux
In the meantime I had discovered that Geoportail could also produce the Cassini maps. These maps, made by the 18th C. French cartographer César-François Cassini, showed the Chapelle Saint-Nizier in all its glory, although not where we thought it should be. The chapel was located along a path used by pelgrims to Santiago de Compostella, a chapel not being unusual along those sort of tracks (see the red circle with 3 written in it in the bottom IGN map).
And again we drove to Jalogny / Vaux, and again in vain. But this blooming chapel should, sure as hell, be somewhere around there!

Blow up of IGN map
When looking at the map again I got another brainwave. Not being hampered by a good memory for places I "discovered", at the edge of the forest (see the red circle with 1 written by it) a spot with some buildings. One of them could well be a source, or even better, a chapel! When I mentioned this to my learned assistant, she dampened my enthusiasm by saying that that was the place where it all started. But, since you never know, we decided to drive back to this spot.
Needless to say that it was indeed the farm where we had started our investigations. However.... when we rounded the corner (red circle with no. 4) I had seen, from the corner of my eye, a cylindrical hut. When we drove back we found there a covered cylindrical structure, with a little door. When I peeked through the door I saw a pit, source or well, albeit dry. A bucket however "proved" that it once had been a pit. And that is the reason I officially close this investigation into the chapel of Saint-Nizier.

The source Saint-Nizier(?) - Jalogny
For those of our guests of La Tuilerie de Chazelle who are the first to locate the chapel Saint-Pierre, or even better, the correct location of the chapel Saint-Nizier, we have a bottle of wine in the fridge as a reward for their effort!

Saturday, 13 July 2013

Don't you have anything better to do???

As I did describe in a previous blog, I have been busy for quite a while composing an interactive map of department 71 (Saône-et-Loire), containing all romanesque buildings in this area.

Saône-et-loire (71)
In the mean time however I have extended my action radius to the other departments of Burgundy as well, and although not 100% ready, I now have maps available for the whole of Burgundy. It seemed logical to stick to the set-up of Eduard van Boxtel's website, and that is exactly what I did. And, as usual with these sort of chores, the final product differs quite a bit from the first set-up.






Côte-d'Or (21)
The status at this moment in time:
Saône-et-Loire (71) is ready. Everything that is found on van Boxtel's site can simply be found on this map. The left hand menu gives the place names in alphabetical order. By zooming in or out one can easily see whether there are any more buildings in the vicinity of the place name, and if yes, how interesting they are. For that purpose I used the rating system of van Boxtel. In order not to duplicate blogs I have incorporated the "Instructions for use" of the maps in my "Glossary of romanesque Archirtecture". The link here after gives direct access to the "Instructions for Use for Department 71" (these instructions are however also valid for the remaning departments))

Nièvre (58)
The link to the maps themselves is given below:


Interactive map Saône-et-Loire (71)

Interactive map Côte-d'Or (21)

Interactive map Nièvre (58)

Interactive map Yonne (89)



Yonne (89)
Côte d'Or (21), Nièvre (58) and Yonne (89) are now also completely ready.

Wednesday, 8 May 2013

Interactive maps of Romanesque churches in Burgundy

These are short instructions for use of the interactive maps of Romanesque churches in Burgundy. . This description is entirely based on the interactive map for the department Saône-et-Loire (71), but is als valid for the remaining 3 departments (21, 58 and 89).


The Romanesque churches in Saône-et-Loire

This map is entirely based on a web page , further referred to as EvB, where (almost) all Romanesque churches in Département Saône-et-Loire (71) are inventoried. Only a few churches outside this department are included, basically because they are just outside 71 and because they are normally included in travel guides for this department, e.g. Charlieu -42-, Neuilly-en-Donjon -03-.


A short explanation on how this map works:

1. Symbols

The lefthand side menu contains a number of symbols.

1a. The first symbol, the red house, points to our house, the basis for our tours in search of Romanesque churches in the area.


The basis of this map (71)
Symbol 1a : the red house




















1b and 1c. The information symbol i points to general, not necessarily building or edifice related information.



Link to the "instructions for use (71)"
Symbol 1b : the information symbol  i  .
This particlar i gives a link to the "instructions for use" of this map.















Places of interest in and around Cluny (71)
Symbol 1c : the information symbol  i  .
This particlar i points to major places of interest, enabling the user to "jump" straight to a specific town or area (Cluny, Tournus, Brionnais, etc.). From there it is easy to zoom in or out to find edifices in or around the area itself.




1d. Symbols in the shape of various pointers.

The remaing symbols are pointers, in various shapes : upside down drops (called drops) in various colours, with or without en eye in the middle, drawing pins in matching colours, blue question marks and purple cameras. The colours of drops and drawing pins are all related to the rating of the buildings.



The matrix below shows how the various edifices are indicated.
Vertical :
The colours of the markers follow the rating of Eduard van Boxtel's website (EvB).
The dark-blue markers on the lefthandside are used for edifices wit a rating of "6" on a scale of 6, hence for buildings of extraordinary architectural interest (e.g. Cluny, Tournus).
To the right the importance diminishes from "5" (red) down to "1" (dark-violet), where the latter is a building with very few romanesque features (e.g. a window opening, a baptismal font).
The column on the utmost righthandside (purple pointers) indicates that EvB so far has had insufficient information to properly rank the building; they are indicated as ranking "1 or 2".
Horizontal :
The top row (drops with a black eye in the middle) indicates that there are pictures available on the internet. The description of the buildings gives a link to EvB's site only. The rating of those drops runs from "6" down to "2". As soon as as I have my own pictures available, the drop will be replaced by one without a black eye in the middle. In principle the amount of drops with a black eye in the middle should decrease.
The middle row (drops without a black eye in the middle) indicates that there are pictures available on the internet. The description of the buildings gives a link to a Picasa Album of myself, Cees van Halderen (CvH) as well as (sometimes, not always) to a page of EvB's site. The rating of those drops runs from "6" down to "1" and to catagory "1 or 2" (undetermined). In principle the amount of drops without a black eye in the middle should increase.
The bottom row (drawing pins) indicates that there are not yet pictures available on the internet (at least not from EvB or CvH). The rating of those drawing pins falls in the catagories of "3", "2", "1" and "1 or 2". In principle the amount of drawing pins should decrease.



The matrix of pointers

2. Tags or labels



A typical tag (71)

Header and description of a tag


















The header contains:
Postcode
Place or hamlet name. Place names or hamlet names in the side menu are ordered alphabetically, with in case of hamlets the name of the commune between brackets behind the hamlet's name.
Name of edifice.
Rating in stars on scale ranging from 6 to 1 (EvB).


The description contains:
Some particulars about the edifice, if available.
The century the building was erected.
Accuracy of the location on the map.
100% spot on, 90 to 50% reasonable, 0% unknown.
A link to one or more picture albums.
Bourgogne Romane (EvB): gives a short description of the edifice and photographs.
Cees van Halderen (CvH): gives only, but usually more photographs.
Sometimes there is a link to both albums, sometimes to one of either albums.



3. Examples

Some examples of the various entries are given below.
Needless to say, that these are only examples; a drop with a black eye in the middle or a drawing pin could in the meantime have been replaced by a drop without a black eye in the middle.


Edifice with "6" star rating (71)
Building rated "6" out of 6 based on EvB's scale.



Edifice with "2" star rating (71)
















Building rated "2" out of 6 based on EvB's scale.



Edifice with "1 or 2" star rating (71)















Building rated "1 or 2" out of 6 based on EvB's scale.
Edifice of which neither EvB nor I have yet photographs or detailed information available.














4. Buildings of which is not even sure whether they are Romanesque at all



Edifice without rating, no pictures available (71)

Building which has no rating (red question mark).
Edifice of which it is not even sure whether it is romanesque at all.
neither EvB nor I have yet photographs or detailed information available.

Edifice without rating, pictures available (71)






Building which has no rating (red camera).
Edifice of which it is not even sure whether it is romanesque at all.
Although I have some photographs available, they are insufficient to qualify the building as romanesque.
People who might be able to clarify this are requested to contact me via email. 



Information can be sent to the following email address:
ceesvanhalderen@gmail.com


Niet romaans gebouw (71)
A building of which it became clear that it has no Romanesque featues (red exclamation mark). There are only pictures available on the internet taken by CvH. The edifice is still shown on this map because there is either still a link between this building and another (often demolished) Romanesque building, or because the building is worth visiting despite it not being Romanesque. There are however very few buildings marked thus; at this moment there are only two.



5. remaining departments 

Boundering departement
Finally the map shows a number of "speed limit signs". the figures on display are however not speed limits, but department numbers. The signs with the numbers 21 (Côte-d'Or), 58 (Nièvre) and 89 (Yonne) contain a link to the map of the relevant department; they are almost as complete as the one for department 71. Because romanesque architecture in Burgunduy does not stop abruptly at the present border of this region, the bordering departments (e.g. 01, 03, 10, etc.) are indicateed with their own "speed limit sign". For most of these departments van Boxtel has made a (limited, arbitrary) choice from the romanesque churches in in a belt of roughly 25 km around Burgundy.
N.B.: the partial maps of the boundering departments 01, 03, 10, 18, 39, 42, 45, 52, 69 and 77 are incomplete and onnly give an impression of the area around Burgundy.

6. conclusion

Needless to say that this map does not pretend to be complete. It is virtually impossible to keep two separate sites, i.e. this map and van Boxtel's site completely in line with each other. When the latter adds a photo page to his site this will not automatically mean that this map will be updated as well. However, I think that this map is very usefull for those who would like to find out which churches can be found in a certain area.
Comments are always welcome!

Tuesday, 7 May 2013

Websites and churches

Whenever I use a website slightly more than normal, there is bound to come a day when I think "Would it not be handier if....". And nine out of ten times it does not come any further then a loose thought, although...

Part of the list of churches on "Le site sur l'Art Roman en Bourgogne"

Ever since I have been looking for information about Romanesque churches in Burgundy, I am using "Le site sur l'Art Roman en Bourgogne" more and more often. This is mainly because the site contains a lot of information on the subject. And since I am quite interested in this subject, I spent more and more time on that site. And indeed, one day I thought "Would it not be handier if there was also a map available, where one can see very quickly what a certain area has to offer?". An email to the webmaster told me that he would like to have this feature as well, but that he had not gotten around it yet.
As a workable alternative I changed my database of churches such, that I could sort that database on specific areas as well, instead of only alphabetically or on rating. A list with churches in the vicinity of e.g. Montceau-les-Mines could be generated very quickly.

Zoomed in on the area of Cluny (Google Map satellite view)

One day my better half bumped into an option of Google Maps. Although making an interactive map was a lot of work, it was certainly doable and not very difficult. After a number of days hard work I now am the proud owner of an interactive map of "all" Romanesque churches in Saône-et-Loire. I can now pinpoint easily and quickly all churches in a certain area, find out how they are classified and find pictures of them. In a following blog a short explanation of how to use the map will be given.
And what about the rest of Burgundy? I gladly leave that chore for someone else!