Santa Maria de Montserrat Abbey
Monasterio de Montserrat
Interesting facts
- A young Antoni Gaudí assisted the architect Villar i Carmona on the circular Cambril chapel behind the Virgin, built between 1876 and 1884.
- The fifteenth-century cross on the basilica's high altar is attributed to Lorenzo Ghiberti, maker of the Florence Baptistery doors.
- Giuliano della Rovere, later Pope Julius II and patron of Michelangelo, held the office of abbot of Montserrat from 1472 to 1483.
- Pope Leo XIII proclaimed the Virgin of Montserrat patron of Catalonia on 11 September 1881, timed to coincide with the Catalan national day.
- At the Virgin's enthronement in April 1947 more than 100,000 people attended, and prayers were said publicly in Catalan in defiance of Franco's language policy.
- Under Franco the abbey kept publishing in Catalan, launching children's magazines and the cultural review Serra d'Or when the language was officially suppressed.
- In December 1970 about 300 artists and intellectuals staged a sit-in at the abbey against the death sentences of the Burgos trial; the sentences were later commuted.
- Twenty-two monks of Montserrat were killed in the anticlerical violence of the Spanish Civil War.
- The Blessed Sacrament chapel holds a 1977 work by Josep Maria Subirachs: a Christ modelled in negative, showing only face, hands and feet.
- A new organ by Albert Blancafort, inaugurated in 2010, stands on the side of the nave in the traditional Catalan manner.
Why it is worth it
The Benedictine abbey of Santa Maria de Montserrat is perched halfway up one of the strangest mountains in Europe. Montserrat — "serrated mountain" — rises 1,236 metres above the valley north-west of Barcelona in a crowd of towers and crags, and the monastery nestles among them. It is Catalonia's most important religious retreat and the home of the Virgin of Montserrat, La Moreneta, the patron saint of Catalonia.
According to legend the image of the Virgin was found in a cave on the mountain around 880, and hermitages grew up around the cult. The monastery itself was founded in 1025, with its first monks coming from the great abbey of Ripoll, and pilgrims have come ever since. In 1811 and 1812 Napoleon's troops burned and sacked the abbey twice, and much of what stands today — including the basilica, completed in its current form in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries — was rebuilt afterwards. The community of monks remains active.
The basilica has a single nave 68 metres long, lined with side chapels, and the Virgin sits in a room above the high altar, reached through an alabaster portal and past walls of mosaic saints; her throne is of embossed silver. The Escolania, one of the oldest boys' choirs in Europe, sings during services. The cloister by Josep Puig i Cadafalch, the monastery's publishing house, founded in 1499, and a museum with works by El Greco, Caravaggio, Monet, Degas, Picasso and Dalí give the place a surprising cultural depth.
The mountain itself is the other reason to come. Funiculars climb from the monastery to the Santa Cova, the grotto of the legend, and to the upper slopes, where footpaths lead to the summit of Sant Jeroni. From there, on a clear day, the view covers almost all of Catalonia and even reaches Mallorca.
Getting there
The monastery is about 48 km north-west of Barcelona; the nearest town is Esparreguera, about 7 km away. The nearest airport is Josep Tarradellas Barcelona–El Prat Airport (BCN), about 39 km away. Trains from Barcelona connect at Monistrol with a rack railway to the monastery, or with a cable car; the monastery can also be reached by road.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Santa Maria de Montserrat is an abbey of the Order of Saint Benedict located on the mountain of Montserrat in Monistrol de Montserrat, Catalonia, Spain. It is notable for enshrining the image of the Virgin of Montserrat. The monastery was founded in 1025 and rebuilt between the 19th and 20th centuries. With a community of around 70 monks, the abbey remains in use.
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