F. Mentényi Klára szerk.: Műemlékvédelmi Szemle 1995/1-2. szám Az Országos Műemléki Felügyelőség tájékoztatója (Budapest, 1995)

MŰHELY - László Csaba: Adalékok Pannonhalma középkori történetéhez

Immediately under the stone pavement the semicircular western end of the church was found. The semicircular form of the approximately 1,5 m wide wall was resembling to that of the known ground plan, there was a narrow, stone-framed window and a niche in it. The approximately 6 m wide apse was continuing towards east, under the columns of the present nave 6 m long. Two meters under the present floor-level there was the terrazzo-pavement belonging to the wall, the level of the former western crypt. The walls unearthed there are the remnants of the first stone church of Pannonhalma from the 2nd century. On their basis this first church belongs to the circle of the three-aisled, double-choir, late karolingian type of churches, the most important examples of which are the great German emperor cathedrals, Mainz and Worms. The filling in of the Pannonhalma western crypt took place latest at the beginning of the 13th century, and the columns of the western choir of the present church were dug in this filling in. Although the apse was full with the early walls, they were standing till the beginning of the 19th century with lesser or greater repair works. In art historical literature the church of Abbot David consecrated in 1137 is considered to be the second church in Pannonhalma. The three-aisled, butressed church's southern wall with windows has remained almost to the height of the cornice under the later layers of plaster. The church had presumably an open-timber roof, its aisles might have been vaulted. The original place of the portals is signed only by the asymmetric situation of the 13th century portals compared to the present vaulting system. On the monastery part of the southern wall and on the wall of the cloisters there were wall-paintings in the 14th century. This is a „Volto Santo" representation, in the territory of medieval Hungary only two of them are known - in Keszthely and Csetnek. The painting was walled off following 1479, when pulling down the whole quadrum the present two storeyed monastery was built. Opposite to the richly decorated southern portal of the 13th century church, the Porta Speciosa, there was another portal too, in the northern aisle wall. The arched red marble portal was walled at the end of the 15th century. This portal is even more important as a result of the fact, that as it had been walled, no alterations were made on it later, and did not suffer the Storno-restoration. On the almost untouched capitals under the whitewash the original colouring and paint has remained. On the occasion of the walling up a Gothic chapel and a vaulted sacristy was built to the northern part of the church.