The church of Santa Cruz de Arabaldo was originally a small monastery that depended on the important Cistercian community of Oseira: its documents date it as early as the 12th century. It consists of a single nave and rectangular apse.
Its façade is Baroque, but the rest of the stonework is Romanesque. Thus, on the southern façade we find a mysterious inscription with Romanesque characters and on the cornice some corbels with geometric decoration. On the northern façade, on the other hand, the corbels have vegetal decoration, and a checkered semicircular gate appears, supported by vegetal capitals and two bovines on the brackets.
The rectangular apse is lower than the central nave. Both end in a cornice supported by corbels: the southern ones have geometric shapes and a monstrous animal, while on the northern ones there is a person drinking from a barrel, an animal that seems to be looking at us and a bird clutching an object. The head has a semicircular arched window with checkered patteern supported by capitals (some decorated with birds) on smooth columns. The apse is finished off in an Agnus Dei with a ram whose cross is missing
References:Rosenborg Palace was built in the period 1606-34 as Christian IV’s summerhouse just outside the ramparts of Copenhagen. Christian IV was very fond of the palace and often stayed at the castle when he resided in Copenhagen, and it was here that he died in 1648. After his death, the palace passed to his son King Frederik III, who together with his queen, Sophie Amalie, carried out several types of modernisation.
The last king who used the place as a residence was Frederik IV, and around 1720, Rosenborg was abandoned in favor of Frederiksborg Palace.Through the 1700s, considerable art treasures were collected at Rosenborg Castle, among other things items from the estates of deceased royalty and from Christiansborg after the fire there in 1794.
Soon the idea of a museum arose, and that was realised in 1833, which is The Royal Danish Collection’s official year of establishment.