The church of St. Eulalia in Beiro is a benchmark and example of Galician rural Romanesque, as it retains much of its original appearance. Given the similarity with the gate of the Claustra Nova, it can be dated at the early 13th century.
The main gate (with a doorway added centuries later) has two semicircular archivolts with vegetal decoration with a clear Matean influence, as well as the capitals. The original tympanum is not preserved but its support is; in it we can see some monstrous animal heads. On the gate, eaves are supported by largely figurative corbels, highlighting a man sitting with a book and another one drinking from a barrel.
The apse is divided into five parts, although one is partially covered by the sacristy. At the top and as a finish, an Agnus Dei. The corbels that support the roof contain figurative elements, animal ones (like the monkey that covers its ears) and vegetal ones. The windows are semicircular with checkered arches and supported by a pair of columns and figurative and vegetal capitals.
On the north side, a molded gate. In the impost we find a curious decoration, the body of a snake, while the tympanum represents a wolf.
In the interior, with a single nave plan and a semicircular apse, the Romanesque decoration focuses on the capitals. The one on the gospel side with four gryphons, a motif repeated in the apse window; the one in the epistle has vegetal decoration. A barrel vault covers the chancel, whose 16th-century coffered ceilings stand out.
References:The Church of St Donatus name refers to Donatus of Zadar, who began construction on this church in the 9th century and ended it on the northeastern part of the Roman forum. It is the largest Pre-Romanesque building in Croatia.
The beginning of the building of the church was placed to the second half of the 8th century, and it is supposed to have been completed in the 9th century. The Zadar bishop and diplomat Donat (8th and 9th centuries) is credited with the building of the church. He led the representations of the Dalmatian cities to Constantinople and Charles the Great, which is why this church bears slight resemblance to Charlemagne's court chapels, especially the one in Aachen, and also to the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna. It belongs to the Pre-Romanesque architectural period.
The circular church, formerly domed, is 27 m high and is characterised by simplicity and technical primitivism.