Sant Martí de Provençals

Església de Sant Martí de Provençals
Built: 1400-1688
Founded: Between 400-500 A.D.
Function: Parish church
Address: Plaça Ignasi Juliol

This very ancient parish, named for St. Martin of Tours, may take its name from two different sources, lost in the mists of time. Pious legend recounts that St. Martin himself visited here during his lifetime, and that the house in which he stayed was used by the early Christians as a kind of primitive church. However attractive the story, this seems somewhat unlikely. It is more likely that the popularity of Saint Martin among the Frankish troops, and their conquest of Catalonia from the Moors, has more to do with the choice of this particular patronage.

With respect to the question of “Provençals”, there are various theories. First there is the fact that the area once stood in agricultural lands around the ancient Roman colony of Barcino, which later became Barcelona, and on maps of the period was marked as “agri provintiales”. The second possibility is that the district was named for settlers from Provence, in Southern France, who arrived with Frankish troops in 801 A.D.

In any case, while the origin of the first church dedicated to St. Martin on the site is unknown, it is believed to have been built sometime in the 5th Century A.D. The building which stood on the site was destroyed during Al-Mansur’s raid on Barcelona in the year 985 A.D. The ruined church was rebuilt by the Counts of Barcelona by 1010, and this building stood until the 1400′s. It was then replaced by the present structure, as the parish came under the patronage of the Canons at the (now-Basilica) of Santa Maria del Mar. The altarpiece of St. Martin, attributed to French painter Antoine de Lonhy, who also designed the windows for Santa Maria del Mar, is now kept in the National Museum of Catalan Art in Barcelona.

Further additions were made to the church in the 17th century, adding a Baroque overlay to the Gothic bones of the building, until its completion in 1688. Although the church suffered some significant damage in the 20th century due to the various Leftist uprisings which took place, it has always come back and been restored by the parishioners. The area is now home to one of Barcelona’s largest immigrant communities, giving it a much higher population than it enjoyed for most of the 1500 years the parish has stood at this site.

Sant Ramon de Penyafort

Església de Sant Ramon de Penyafort
Built: 1155-1500
Founded: 668 A.D.
Function: Parish church; former monastic church
Address: Rambla de Catalunya 133

Like the newly-designated Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, the parish church of Saint Raymond of Penyafort located on the Rambla de Catalunya began its life as something else than what it is now. Although dedicated to Saint Raymond today, the church has gone through many name and purpose changes, and originally stood several miles away from its present location. Thanks to the efforts of Barcelona’s citizens, it is a beautiful and fortunate survivor of the Middle Ages, after a very circuitous path.

It is known that a pilgrimage church dedicated to Santa Eulalia del Camp (“Saint Eulalia-in-the-Fields”) was established north of the city in the seventh century. The first mention of this comes from Quiricus, Bishop of Barcelona from 658-667 A.D. When he was transferred to Toledo to become bishop there, Quiricus sent funds for the establishment of a church dedicated St. Eulalia and in the keeping of the Augustinian friars, to be built on the ruins of an old temple dedicated to Venus which stood in the fields outside the city walls. There is little mention of this community again until 1155, when Bishop Guillem de Tarroja re-founded and rebuilt the place, asking the Augustinian friars to return to the complex with the purpose of providing a community of regular canons from Santa Eulalia del Camp.

In 1347 when Maria d’Aragó, daughter of King Pere III, died, she left a monetary legacy in her will to found a new Dominican convent in Barcelona. The community was to be dedicated to St. Peter Martyr, the great Dominican opponent of dualism, who was killed by the Cathars in April of 1252 and canonized in March of 1253 – the fastest canonization in Church history. It was the Princess’ nephew, King Pere IV, who laid the cornerstone of the new building in 1351, close to the waterfront and the medieval shipyards. During this same time period, the church and the cloister at Santa Eulalia del Camp, in the hands of the Augustinian monks, was being built in typically clean-edged, Catalan High Gothic style.

The first Dominican nuns began to arrive later in 1351 from Languedoc, the part of Catalonia now in France, to help get the new community on its feet. At first they were lodged in temporary quarters near Santa Maria de Jonqueres, whose church is now the aforementioned Basilica of the Immaculate Conception. In 1354 they moved to quarters next to the monastic building their community would later come to own, the complex of the Augustinians at Santa Eulalia del Camp.

By 1357 the new Dominican waterfront monastery was completed, and the nuns moved in. Unfortunately, despite the picturesque setting by the sea, the port area proved to be too dangerous and within two years, the nuns had to move to new quarters within the city walls. Work began on a new monastery in the western part of the city, near some of the newer monastic communities and the city hospital, and by 1371 the new home for the itinerant nuns was completed.

In 1423 the nuns abandoned this new structure – which was bought by the Poor Clares thirty years later and named Santa Maria de Jerusalem – and purchased the old monastery of Santa Eulalia del Camp. Three years before, the Augustinians of Santa Eulalia del Camp merged their community with that of their neighbors and fellow Augustinians, the Canons of the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre of the Monastery of Santa Anna. In some respects this was a homecoming for the Dominican community, who had lived and worshiped here while their original home was being built 70 years earlier. The nuns dedicated their new home to the Mare de Déu de Montsió, because one of the chapels in the monastic church, dedicated to Our Lady under that title, was popular with the local residents.

During the anti-clerical uprisings of the 19th century, the nuns had to abandon the monastery twice. Severe damage was done to the structure during these periods, and because of this and the expansion of the Barcelona city grid in the 19th century, in 1882 the church and the cloister of the monastery began to be disassembled, stone by stone, and moved to the new boulevard known as the Rambla Catalunya. By 1888 the nuns were able to move into their newly-renovated and newly-relocated home, and remained there until the Civil War in 1936-1939, when they had to flee once again.

Following the destruction wrought on the complex by the Leftists during the Civil War, in 1947 the nuns decided to move out of the city altogether, settling in the Barcelona suburbs at an old country estate in Espluges. The nuns left their beautiful church behind but, bizarrely enough, they took their equally beautiful cloister with them to their new home. (One can only imagine the conversations that went on between the Prioress and the Cardinal-Archbishop about that project.) The parish of Sant Ramon de Penyafort was then established by the Archdiocese in the old church which the Dominican nuns had left behind.

Here we see the exterior of the church:

And here is the interior:

Santa Maria de Valldonzella

Monestir de Santa Maria de Valldonzella
Built: 1913-1922
Founded: Before 1175
Function: Cistercian convent
Address: Del Cister 41-45

The Cistercians have a long history in the building of Barcelona, as well as throughout Catalonia. The impact of both Cistercian architecture and spirituality cannot be underestimated in the development of the clean-lined, geometric version of Gothic adopted by the Crown and by the Archdiocese. Unfortunately, perhaps in part because the Cistercian life is not an easy one, the Order itself has declined significantly and there are few members of this community left in Barcelona, even as tourists admire their ideas in stone form at places like the Basilica of Santa Maria del Mar.

One of the few remaining communities of Cistercian nuns can be found at the Monastery of St. Mary of Valldonzella, located in the hills above the city. Although there are mentions of an early Cistercian religious community of women living here as far back as 1175, what is known for certain is that in 1226 the Bishop of Barcelona placed the community under the control of the monks at the Monastery of Sant Cugat, just over the mountains in what is now suburban Barcelona. By 1237 both the nuns at Valldonzella and the monks at Sant Cugat had formally joined the Cistercian community within the Benedictines.

The following centuries represent a series of some great highs but also some terrible disasters for the Cistercian nuns who, as a result of perils from robbers, wars, plague, and revolutions, ended up moving to and from the Valldonzella area and down into the city for protection numerous times. During better times, they were favored by royalty, as King Joan I maintained a residence nearby, and would come to stay here from time to time in private quarters to take advantage of the abundant game in the area. King Martin I came up here from Barcelona to get out of the cramped city quarters and recuperate from illness. When he eventually died, his widow Queen Margarida retired here to join the order of Cistercian nuns.

However, not all was pleasant on the hillside. The nuns lost their dwellings to decay and violence, became pawns in religious and political infighting, and had to flee to other neighborhoods in Barcelona or even to other cities in order to save their lives. Throughout their many wanderings and losses however, the nuns managed to preserve a 13th century image of the Virgin and Child known as “Our Lady of the Choir”, which has continued to inspire them, and they have brought the image with them wherever they have gone for the past 800 years.

In 1913 the nuns returned to Valldonzella, following yet another period of destruction and exile that began during the Leftist uprisings of 1909, and work began on a new home for the community. The resulting structure, with its chapel, cloister, and outbuildings, took nearly a decade to build, but the end result was that the nuns finally had a home back on the hillside where they were first founded as a community, and which – for the moment at least – seems to be secure. Bern Martorell i Puig, the architect of the complex, was a contemporary of Gaudí, Puig i Caldafach, and other great Catalan builders of the early 20th century. His design for the nuns is typical of the Catalan architectural style known as “Modernisme”, in that it has a mixture of Gothic, Romanesque, Moorish, and other historical influences, with dashes of Art Nouveau, that in combination create an interesting whole.

Here we can see the entrance to the church and the campanile:

The interior of the church has some amazing decorated vaulting:

We can see a bit of the interior here:

Here are some shots of the image of the Madonna & Child which the nuns have kept safe as they have moved about from place to place:

and here are some views of the cloister:

Sant Pere de les Puel.les

Església de Sant Pere de les Puel.les
Built: 945-1300 A.D.
Founded: 801 A.D.
Function: Parish church; former monastic church
Address: Lluís El Piadós 1

[N.B.: For updated fotos I took during a recent trip, please see below...]

Sant Pere de les Puel.les is perhaps one of the saddest architectural losses to the Church in Barcelona, for it was not only a very ancient monastic community, but a large and beautiful Romanesque complex. The Catalan style of Romanesque art and architecture was, without exaggeration, among the best in the world, and this royal institution was lavished upon by a succession of monarchs. The remaining church is only a dim shadow of what the original monastery which stood on this site for over one thousand years must have looked like.

A church dedicated to Saint Saturninus (martyred in Zaragoza, Spain in 303 A.D.) originally stood here, located just outside the old Roman walls of the city, as early as 801 A.D. according to some preserved inscriptions. It was expanded under the patronage of the Holy Roman Emperor Louis the Pious (known as Lluís El Piadós in Catalonia), King of France from 814-840, who was the son of the Emperor Charlemagne. At that time Catalonia was, in a sense, a part of France, as the Counts of Barcelona were vassals of the King of the Franks, who ruled the city in the King’s name. It was only later that the Counts of Barcelona asserted their independence, beginning in 985, and began to build their own empire and royal dynastic traditions without deference to the Frankish throne.

Tradition says that a community of Benedictine nuns took over the church in the 800′s, thus accounting for the expansion of the original church building at that time. During reconstruction after the 1905 sacking of the church, some inscriptions indicating a presence from that 9th Century period, as well as examination of several of the columns in the northern end of the building, have led some scholars to believe that the Church of Saint Saturninus and its gravestones had been torn down and used in the construction of the new church. However other scholars think it more likely that the community was founded between 900-925 A.D, and construction of the church began about this time.

Whether new or old, once the Benedictines arrived the church was re-dedicated to Saint Peter, but eventually acquired the moniker “de les Puelles”. “Puel.les” is Catalan for either “novices” or girls”, since the young ladies of the convent were supposedly great beauties from the nobility or wealthy merchant classes. Some stories say that a few of these women deliberately scarred themselves or altered their appearance, so as to enter the convent and escape rape or marriage without their consent.

The first documentary evidence regarding the community is a report which, amazingly, is still preserved in the monastic archive. It recounts the ceremonies for the dedication of the monastic church dedicated to St. Peter the Apostle in 945 A.D., over which presided Count Sunyer and Countess Riquilda of Barcelona, as well as Barcelona’s Bishop Guilará, and Adelaida, the first Abbess of the community – who also happened to be the daughter of Sunyer and Riquilda.

During Al-Mansur’s raids a few decades later, the monastery and church were sacked, and had to be restored. Building projects continued through the 11th and 12th centuries. The city walls were expanded in the 13th century by King Jaume I, as a result of which the monastery was then protected inside the city, with the adjoining fortress bastion named for Sant Pere de les Puel.les.

Like other medieval monastic communities with royal favor, by 1072 the monastery had become so powerful that the nuns were given independence from episcopal control in Barcelona and came under the direct control of Rome via a Papal bull. A supplemental Papal bull reconfirming the nuns’ independence from diocesan control was issued in 1193. This was probably much to the chagrin of the diocese, which no doubt coveted the monastery’s substantial income. This tension reasserted itself over the years, such as in 1756, when Sant Pere’s then-Abbess Teresa Sans was excommunicated by the Bishop of Barcelona after she was shown to have appropriated certain powers of the bishopric to herself.

The decline of the community began under Napoleon, when the nuns had to flee the convent from 1808 until 1814. Eventually they were able to return, and spent several years trying to recoup their losses. By 1835 however, the nuns were expelled from the monastery during an anti-clerical uprising, as indeed were numerous other communities throughout Spain. Regrettably, the monastery then became a prison.

After this expulsion, the Benedictines briefly returned, but occupied the remaining archive of the monastery until a new home could be found for the community. The nuns decided to move to the then-village of Sarrià, in the north end of Barcelona, which was much safer than remaining downtown. Construction of their new convent was completed by 1879, and remains the home of the community today.

In 1873 the cloister and most of the outbuildings of Sant Pere de les Puel.les were destroyed during an anti-clerical uprising. In 1909, during the aptly named “Tragic Week”, when many of the city’s convents were burned and looted by Leftists yet again, the monastic church itself was burned. The church was partially restored two years later, in a somewhat haphazard fashion, and eventually became the parish church of Sant Pere de les Puelles. Following the Civil War from 1936-1939, the church was restored and returned to its parochial functions in 1945.

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Update:

One of the reasons that it is difficult to find fotos of this church is that it is so enormous but dark that pictures do not do it justice. Even the images that follow are not sufficient to give a sense of the tremendous space and stillness inside the old monastic chapel. Neither my mother, a Barcelona native, nor my father, who lived in Barcelona for a number of years, had ever been here before, and both gasped at the sheer size of the interior.

One enters from a rather unremarkable plaza which, though it has some charm, gives no hint of the architecture within. We can see the figure of St. Peter – which is a replacement of the original, destroyed by the Leftists during the Civil War – in the tympanum over the doorway:

Near him is a rainspout of a praying angel, also replaced after the Civil War’s destruction:

The interior of the church features enormous, tall Romanesque vaulting, but because there are hardly any windows in the interior, and I was not using an SLR camera with a slow enough shutter speed, it was too dark for me to capture the incredible arches and dome-like ceilings. One can imagine that before the ravages of war and destruction, the church must have glowed with the stunningly bright Romanesque wall paintings typical of Catalonia which are so beautifully preserved in the National Museum of Catalan Art, on Montjuich hill in the western part of the city. The following images of the side aisles and some of the column and capital details will have to suffice. All the more reason for the pilgrim to find this slightly out-of-the-way Romanesque monument on their trip to Barcelona and admire the glorious spaces of this ancient marvel for themselves.

Mare de Déu del Coll

Església de la Mare de Déu del Coll
Built: Before 1098 A.D., with later additions
Founded: Before 1098 A.D.
Function: Parish church and school; former Benedictine priory
Address: Santuari 30

Although it has experienced some significant downturns in its history, the Church of Our Lady of Coll, in the district of the same name in the north end of Barcelona, retains vestiges of its very ancient past. The first documented history of the church’s existence dates from 1098, when there is mention of the chapel having been built by Father Grau Miró, a member of the Benedictine Abbey of Sant Cugat. At the time the Coll District, which lies roughly to the NW end of the then-village of Gracia, was well-outside the city of Barcelona, in the foothills of the Collserola Mountains which ring the city.

The small Benedictine community continued to live and work here until sometime around 1450-1500, when the last of the monks left and the church was turned over to the Archdiocese. The building saw little use until after Barcelona’s expansion in the 19th century; at one point it was burned during a Left-wing uprising in 1835. However, with the growing city population headed towards formerly semi-rural districts like Coll, the need for a mission in this area brought the ancient structure back into service, albeit on a spotty basis.

In 1928 the Congregation of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart was given the charge of running the church, and within two years of their arrival began to preserve and improve upon the structure, adding both neo-Romanesque elements to the remains of the old chapel, as well as a new school for the local children. During the Civil War the school and the church were closed, but they returned to service in 1948. In 1961 the church was formally raised to the level of a parish by the Archdiocese.

Here we see the front of the church as it exists today:

as well as a view of the apse:

La Concepció

Basilica-Església de la Puríssima Concepció
Built: 1293-1448
Founded: 1214
Function: Parish church; minor basilica; former monastic community
Address: Aragó 299

[N.B.: For updated fotos I took during a recent trip, please see below...]

The parish church of the Immaculate Conception and Assumption of Our Lady is Barcelona’s newest basilica, bringing the city’s present total to eight. Named by Pope Benedict XVI on the Feast of the Assumption 2009, it is actually one of the city’s oldest existing ecclesiastical buildings. The story of how it arrived at its present status, despite years of neglect, decline, and near-demolition, is a testimony to its parishoners and to the faithful in Barcelona to not only have this beautiful structure survive, but thrive.

The original monastic community of Benedictine sisters of Sant Vicenç de Jonqueres was founded in 1214 in the town of the same name, located just outside of Sabadell, a city situated about 10 miles from Barcelona. Apparently the sisters had some problems getting organized, and in 1261 following appeal to the Bishop of Barcelona, they were invited to move to that city. The nuns left their quarters in Jonqueres temporarily for Sabadell in 1273, while suitable buildings were located. The actual move was not completed until 1293, when the nuns took up residence on what is now the Carrer de Jonqueres, on the edge of the Gothic Quarter.

Their new convent was named Santa Maria de Jonqueres, recalling their origin but distinguishing themselves from the parish of Saint Vincent where they had experienced so many problems. By 1300, with the construction of the first permanent chapel on the site, the convent was officially renamed Sant Jaume de l’Espasa, since the nuns had adopted the Rule of St. James of the Sword, better-known as the famous religious-military order of Santiago. However, the community continued to be referred to colloquially as Santa Maria de Jonqueres.

The community quickly became associated with the daughters of the noble families of Barcelona, and grew extremely wealthy. Their original holdings were enormous, covering numerous square blocks of the old city. The two-story cloister was completed before 1400, and in 1448 the consecration of the enormous Catalan Gothic monastic chapel, which replaced the simpler version that had been built between 1293-1300, took place with great fanfare.

The nuns were expelled and their community dissolved in 1810, during the Napoleonic period, and in 1820 the convent was converted into a military hospital. The site subsequently became a prison, and still later a military depot. In 1867, the chapel itself was named a parish by the Archdiocese, dedicated to the Immaculate Conception and Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the remains of the convent, which were in very poor repair by this time, were finally torn down in 1868.

During Barcelona’s expansion in the mid-19th century, the complex was slated for demolition because it lay along a proposed route to connect the northern part of the new city to the seafront. Fortunately, due to foresight by the Archdiocese and the local gentry, between 1869 and 1871 the former chapel and the cloister were moved, stone by stone, from their original location in the Gothic Quarter to their present site in the Eixample, the 19th century grid-like district which houses much of Barcelona’s famous 19th and 20th century buildings. The church was then re-consecrated in 1872 and became the first parish in this new district of the city. In 1879, when the Church of St. Michael was torn down in order to make way for the expansion of City Hall, the portal of the church went to the Basilica of La Mercè, but the bell tower was given to the parish of La Concepció.

This 19th century engraving gives us some idea of the poor state of affairs in which the parish found itself pending demolition, and before the church and cloister were moved to their present location:

Here we see some shots of the present-day exterior:

Here are some views of the interior:

Here is one of the daily mass chapels in the cloister:

And here are some views of the cloister itself:

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Update:

Here are some fotos I took during my most recent visit to Barcelona. The Basilica became my parish-away-from-home, as it was within a short walk of the flat we had rented, and I was able to attend mass here or drop by for prayers on an almost-daily basis.

Here we see some shots of the exterior of the church, both before and after early morning daily mass. First is a general view, obviously before sunup:

Here we can see two new details which have been added since the church was elevated to a Minor Basilica. First, the coat of arms of Pope Benedict XVI, which appear in the arch above the main entrance portal:

and here is the heraldry of the umbrella indicating that this is a Basilica:

Now as we go inside, we can see the sanctuary – along with the red-and-gold striped basilica umbrella to your left:

and here is one of the side altars:

And here is a shot of the Basilica after morning mass, with the sun coming up:

Out in the cloister, the parish set up a large nativity scene, complete with rabbits and a rooster, which became very popular with the local children. I dropped by to visit them just about every day.

Here we see the nativity scene:

here is the rooster:

and here are the rabbits. They were built a rabbit hutch to sleep in which is shaped like a masia, a typical Catalan farmhouse:

Pedralbes

Monestir Reial de Santa Maria de Pedralbes
Built: 1327- c.1500
Founded: 1326
Function: Monastic church
Address: Baixada del Monastir 9

The Royal Monastery of St. Mary of Pedralbes is the finest standing Gothic complex in Barcelona. It includes a large monastic church, three-story arcaded cloister, chapter house, chapels, gardens, and other buildings. For me, it has always held a special place in my heart because my family has long had an historical association with this place. For example, the family has a chapel in the monastic church which we use when there for Christmas, and one of my great-aunts, who served as abbess during the Civil War, is buried in the cloister. As a small boy, when I lived in Pedralbes for a brief time, I used to run across the square to go visit the statue of the Madonna and Child inside the church, to keep them company and bring them treats.

Pedralbes was founded as a Poor Clares convent by Queen Elisenda of Montcada in 1326, who served as the community’s first abbess. The name of the location comes from the Latin “petras albas” – “pedras albas” in Catalan – meaning “white stones”, because of the unusually high quality of white building stone which was found here.

Elisenda de Montcada of the powerful Catalan noble house of Montcada was the third and final wife of King Jaume II, one of the greatest of the Catalan kings, who had such a robust constitution that he outlived his two previous wives. In 1325, Queen Elisenda sought permission from Pope John XXII to found a convent, which was granted and the community founded in 1326. King Jaume died the same year, and Queen Elisenda decided to retire to the convent herself, overseeing its construction. Since the establishment opened in 1327, it has remained a functioning convent in the hands of the Poor Clares, an order which was new to Catalonia at the time, but which the Queen thought would bring a new vigor to religious life in Barcelona.

When she retired to Pedralbes, the Queen kept many of her prerogatives, including living apart from the other sisters in a small palace or villa that was built for her in part of the complex. Because she lived for a considerable amount of time following the death of her husband, and because of her wealth and political connections, Queen Elisenda managed to make Pedralbes a very well-endowed monastic community, and her counsel was sought by kings, prelates and government officials until her death. To this day, the Abbess of Pedralbes enjoys certain privileges with respect to the city government that would be considered astounding in the United States, including the right to order the Mayor and the City Council to dine with her on particular occasions. As a result, the nuns at Pedralbes were usually drawn from the wealthiest and most prominent Catalan families.

The church itself was designed by the same architects who built the Basilica of Santa Maria del Mar, and features the same polygonal columns and geometric, Cistercian simplicity that came to exemplify the best of Catalan Gothic. Like Santa Maria del Mar, the monastic church of Santa Maria de Pedralbes was finished rather quickly, explaining its very harmonious interior. The three-story cloister was built beginning around the same time, and completed by the early 1400′s.

In 1346, the Queen commissioned artist Ferrer Bassa to fresco the interior of the Chapel of St. Michael inside the cloister, and today this remains one of the great artistic treasures of the monastery. Bassa’s biography remains something of a mystery, but art historians believe that he studied in Siena, which would explain the very Sienese-Cuatrocento looking figures which cover the inside of this chapel. By bringing this infusion of the latest style of Tuscan art into Catalonia, Bassa had an enormous impact on Catalan art of the period.

Following Queen Elisenda’s death in 1367, her residence was torn down as per her Will, although remains of it were re-discovered in the 1970′s. One of the more unusual aspects of Queen Elisenda’s burial is her tomb itself. On the inside of the monastic church, her sepulchre sits on one wall of the sanctuary, and we see Queen Elisenda in full royal regalia. However the other side of the sepulchre faces the cloister, and on that side she is dressed as a Poor Clare.

Pedralbes’ importance and holdings continued to grow however, for many centuries, and its relationship with the government in Barcelona kept it well-protected. Although the entire complex originally was surrounded by walled fortifications, today only two of the gate towers remain, at either end of the entrance to the square in front of the monastic church. It suffered scant damage during the Civil War, in part because of its long, good relationship with the city and the fact that it lay far to the north of downtown, although the Poor Clares had to be spirited away to France temporarily to escape the Leftists all the same.

Today, although sadly there are far fewer nuns left than their ought to be, Pedralbes is still a functioning cloistered convent. However many of the grander spaces have been converted into museum spaces to show daily life in the Middle Ages as well as the numerous artistic treasures brought to the convent as part of the dowries with which nuns originally came to join the community. If you visit, you may even see one of the nuns running back and forth getting ready for mass or the Divine Office.

Here is the public entrance to the monastic church, along with the bell tower:

Here is the sanctuary and the apse:

And here is a view of the choir and the organ:

Here we see Queen Elisenda’s tomb. First the royal side, in the sanctuary of the monastic church:

We can see a bit of the fine detail here:

and here is the cloister side, showing her dressed as a Poor Clare:

Speaking of the cloister, here is part of it, along with some of the garden in the middle:

Here we see the refectory, which is accessed through the cloister:

And here is the Chapel of St. Michael, with the 14th century frescoes by Ferrer Bassa: