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Monastery of Santa Maria de Ripoll

Ripoll, Ripollès, Girona

1 Villages · 6 Monuments · 2 Activities · 4 Historical milestones

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Monastery of Santa Maria de Ripoll

Monument · Ripoll, Ripollès, Girona

The monastery of Santa Maria de Ripoll is a Benedictine abbey founded around the year 880 by Guifré the Hairy, perhaps on an earlier Visigothic temple; it was the pantheon of the counts of Barcelona and of Besalú and, in the Middle Ages, a centre of culture comparable to other great European abbeys such as Saint-Denis or Montecassino. In the 12th century its celebrated portal in the form of a triumphal arch was erected, one of the major works of Catalan Romanesque sculpture, with the Maiestas Domini, the apostolate and scenes from the Old Testament. Fires, plundering and the desecration of tombs during the Civil War left only the basilica and the cloister standing, now reconstructed. It was declared a monumento histórico-artístico (a former Spanish heritage-protection category, in force until 1985) in 1931, and scenes from El Cid (1961) were filmed there.

Photo: Gennadii Saus i Segura (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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