Metropolitan and Primatial Cathedral Basilica of St. Tecla: Tarragona’s Cathedral
Site at a Glance
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- 4.6
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- Medium
- Country
- Spain
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Classical, Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Crown of Aragon, Roman, Spanish, Visigothic
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Cathedral
On this page31 sections
History
The Metropolitan and Primatial Cathedral Basilica of St. Tecla is a medieval Christian cathedral in Tarragona, Spain, built mainly between the later twelfth and fourteenth centuries in a transitional Romanesque-Gothic style. It stands on the city’s highest ground, where a Roman imperial temple dedicated to Augustus, a Visigothic cathedral, and a mosque had previously occupied the site. The cathedral is the metropolitan and primatial church of the Archdiocese of Tarragona and is dedicated to Saint Thecla, the city’s patron saint.
Roman and early Christian Tarragona
The site formed part of Tarraco, which became the capital of the Roman province of Tarraconensis in 27 BC. Archaeological and coin evidence places the construction of the imperial temple during the reign of Tiberius, probably around AD 19. Its position on the highest ground later helped preserve the location as the religious centre of the city.
Christianity was established in Tarragona by the third century. In AD 259, Bishop Fructuosus and his deacons Augurius and Eulogius were martyred in the amphitheatre. The cathedral’s foundation tradition also connects Tarragona with Saint Paul, holding that he visited Hispania and preached at Tarraco. This association belongs to religious tradition rather than securely established historical evidence.
Visigothic and Islamic periods
The Visigoths occupied Tarragona in 475. A Visigothic cathedral was reportedly erected over the Roman imperial structures and remained there until the Islamic incursion of 711. After that conquest, Tarragona’s bishop abandoned the see, and the city remained largely deserted for several centuries.
Restoration of the see
In 1091, Pope Urban II appointed Berenguer Seniofred de Lluçanès, bishop of Vic, as archbishop of Tarragona. His appointment began the restoration of the archiepiscopal see and encouraged the repopulation of Tarragona and the surrounding Camp de Tarragona. After Ramon Berenguer III reconquered the city in 1118, he assigned its repopulation to Archbishop Oleguer.
Bernat Tort became the first archbishop to reside permanently in Tarragona in 1154. He established the cathedral chapter with Augustinian canons from Saint-Ruf near Avignon and created a fortified ecclesiastical complex over the surviving Roman remains. The defensive character of this complex helped protect the community from Muslim incursions. Its first cathedral church was dedicated to Saint Thecla.
The cathedral chapter followed the Augustinian rule and maintained communal buildings around the cloister, including a dormitory, refectory, cellar, kitchen, and chapter house. Its officers included the claustral prior, pavord, archdeacon, treasurer, sacristan major, chamberlain, cantor, sub-cantor, hospitaler, and infirmarer. Pope Clement VII secularized the canons on 4 December 1530, ending their communal Augustinian organization.
Construction of the present cathedral
A new cathedral was planned in the later twelfth century. Bishop Hug de Cervelló, Alfonso the Chaste, and Peter the Ceremonious made major donations, while successive archbishops directed particular stages of the work. The project began with a Romanesque conception and developed into a building that combined Romanesque and Gothic forms. Principal construction continued through the fourteenth century, and Archbishop Joan of Aragon and Anjou consecrated the cathedral in June 1331.
Under Bishop Berenguer de Vilademuls, the apse was completed in 1184. During the episcopate of Aspàreg de la Barca, the eastern end was opened for worship. Pere d’Albalat commissioned the octagonal lantern from the master builder Bernat in 1250, and Bishop Bernat d’Olivella commissioned the main portal from Bartomeu of Girona in 1277. Bishop Roderic Tello paid for the penultimate bay of the central nave in 1305.
Building and embellishment continued from the fourteenth through the eighteenth centuries. Chapels and other works introduced Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque elements into the earlier structure. The cathedral therefore preserves a long sequence of additions rather than representing a single, uniform building campaign.
Saint Thecla and the cathedral’s identity
Saint Thecla was an early Christian holy woman traditionally associated with Iconium and Saint Paul. Her legendary martyrdom and miraculous escapes from execution shaped the cathedral’s dedication, principal altar, high altarpiece, and relic cult. Tradition relates that her relics were transferred through King Oshin of Lesser Armenia and King James II of Aragon in the early fourteenth century.
One arm relic disappeared during the French assault of 1811. The other was given to the cathedral in 1814. A reliquary found in Tarragona’s old quarter late in the twentieth century was identified after examination as the lost relic. The history of these relics continues to connect the cathedral’s medieval dedication with its later religious life.
Museums, archaeological work, and protection
The Diocesan Museum of Tarragona was founded in 1914 by Archbishop Antolín López Peláez from earlier episcopal collections and later donations from the cathedral chapter, diocesan parishes, and private individuals. It first occupied rooms in the cloister and expanded into the Corpus Christi chapel in 1932. Inadequate facilities led to its closure from 1973 to 1992, followed by further renewal beginning in 2014.
Archaeological excavations and restoration followed work undertaken in 1999–2001 by Joan Figuerola and Joan Gavaldà. A geophysical survey in 2007 identified indications of the Roman temple beneath the central nave. A restoration campaign begun in 2010 addressed the vaults, walls, murals, polychromy, choir stalls, chapels, tombs, and building systems.
The cathedral was declared a National Monument on 3 April 1905 and is also protected as a Cultural Asset of National Interest. Its historic fabric preserves evidence of Tarragona’s Roman, Visigothic, Islamic, medieval, and later Christian phases.
The cathedral also became temporarily associated with the medieval royal remains displaced from Poblet Monastery. The confiscation and looting of Poblet in 1835 dispersed the remains of James I, Peter the Ceremonious, John I, and their wives. Some were transferred to Tarragona in 1843, where Lluís Domènech i Montaner designed a funerary monument in 1908. After the restoration of the royal tombs by Frederic Marès, the remains returned to Poblet on 4 June 1952. They were not placed in the monument, which is now in a courtyard of Tarragona’s city hall.
Remains
Plan, nave, and eastern end
The cathedral is built mainly of ashlar in a basilical Latin-cross plan. It has a central nave, two aisles, a pronounced transept, and three deep, semicircular apses arranged in a staggered form. The transept arms and lateral apses are unequal because the cloister occupies the northern side. The building measures approximately 100 to 101 metres in length. The central nave is about 16.5 metres wide and 26 metres high, rising a further 12 metres at the lantern, while the aisles are about 8.25 metres wide and 13 metres high.
Rib vaults cover the nave. Their moulded ribs rest on cruciform piers and paired attached columns, whose capitals include motifs recalling Hispano-Muslim art. The windows combine Romanesque openings and archivolts with Gothic traceried stained glass. In the central apse, three pointed windows occupy the lower level and seven the upper level. Outside, a moulded cornice, saw-tooth frieze, and blind arcading supported by corbels organize the apse wall. The corbels carry carvings of human figures, animals, and geometric forms.
The lantern
The octagonal lantern was built in the mid-thirteenth century over the crossing. A lantern tower admits light and emphasizes the intersection of the nave and transept. Here, angular squinches support a ribbed vault, while mullions and coloured glass form the openings.
The presbytery pavement
The presbytery and central apse retain a Romanesque pavement made from coloured stone and marble plaques. The pieces form geometric interlacing patterns in orange, yellow, white, and black. This opus sectile, a technique using fitted pieces of stone or marble to create designs, was made with a relatively standardized method rather than by cutting every piece as an individual shape.
Facade and main portal
The main facade remains an unfinished composition with three portals corresponding to the nave and aisles. The central entrance is Gothic, with successive pointed arches and substantial side buttresses. The two lateral entrances are Romanesque, using white marble, semicircular arches, moulded archivolts, lintels, and tympana. Smaller Romanesque rose windows occupy the lateral sections.
The central rose window
Above the main portal is a large rose window with an exterior diameter of about 11 metres. It has twelve radial divisions and seven circular mouldings, each approximately 1.30 metres thick. The twelve rays have been interpreted as references to the twelve tribes of Israel or the twelve apostles.
The Gothic portal
Bartomeu of Girona received the commission for the main portal in 1277, and his last documented connection with it dates to about 1291. Apostles and prophets stand in the jambs beneath canopies, including Saints Peter, Andrew, and Thomas. The central mullion carries the Virgin Mary. Its octagonal pedestal is carved with the Creation of Adam and Eve and the Original Sin.
The tympanum presents the Last Judgement. Christ and angels hold the instruments of the Passion, while the saved and condemned occupy the surrounding scenes. The inner face shows the Virgin between Saint Paul and Saint Thecla, accompanied by two angels carrying candles. Jaume Cascalls and his workshop made the Gothic window above the portal around 1375.
Jaume Cascalls, assisted by Guillem Solivella and Jordi de Déu, supplied twelve further statues of apostles and prophets for the outer parts of the portal. Their bodies are stone and their heads marble. The doors, dating from the late fifteenth century, have metal and wrought-iron coverings funded by Archbishop Gonzalo Fernández de Heredia.
Cloister and canonical buildings
The cloister lies northeast of the cathedral and measures approximately 47 by 46 metres. Four galleries, each divided into six bays, surround a large central courtyard. Ribbed vaults cover the galleries, and gutters once discharged rainwater toward a Roman sewer that was still in use. The beginning of construction remains uncertain, with work placed between the mid-twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. Archbishop Ramon de Rocabertí left 1,000 sous for the work.
The upper order of the cloister arcades consists of large blind pointed arches with traceried circular openings and a continuous polylobed frieze of Islamic derivation. Below them are groups of three semicircular arches decorated with diamond points and carried on paired columns. Carved decoration covers capitals, imposts, bases, friezes on the angular piers, cornice corbels, brackets, and vault keystones.
Cloister sculpture
The sculpture combines religious and secular subjects. Religious scenes include the visit of the angels to Abraham, Cain and Abel, episodes from Genesis and the New Testament, and the disbelief of Saint Thomas. Other carvings show warriors, musicians, lust, avarice, and the two-part story of rats burying a cat. The northern gallery contains scenes associated with Saint Nicholas. An Arabic inscription dated 960, identified as a remnant of the former mosque, is incorporated into a cloister wall.
Cloister doorway
The Romanesque doorway to the cloister dates from the thirteenth century. Its marble lintel supports a tympanum with Christ in Majesty and the Tetramorph, the four symbolic figures associated with the Evangelists: a human or angel for Matthew, a lion for Mark, an ox for Luke, and an eagle for John. Three semicircular archivolts frame capitals carved with foliage and the visit of the three Marys to Christ’s tomb.
A monolithic mullion column divides the entrance. Its base is decorated with a reptile, and its capital shows scenes from the infancy of Jesus. Above the doorway is a Christogram with Alpha and Omega.
Refectory and chapter house
The former refectory is a twelfth-century rectangular room with a pointed barrel vault. Part of a Roman first-century portico wall survives at its head. The room now forms part of the Diocesan Museum and contains archaeological and artistic material from the cathedral and diocese.
The former chapter house, now the Chapel of Corpus Christi and a museum gallery, has a square plan, barrel vault, central doorway, and paired windows. It was enlarged in 1330 with a polygonal apse and converted into a Eucharistic chapel. The apse keystone shows Christ in Majesty, and the arches carry the symbols of the Tetramorph. The walls preserve an Annunciation group, the tombstone of Alemanda de Rocabertí, who died in 1373, and eleven fourteenth-century polychrome stone figures of saints and apostles.
Sacristy and treasury
The sacristy was adapted from an earlier chapel. It has a rectangular plan, a pointed barrel vault, and a partly polychromed wooden ceiling with traditionally Mudéjar motifs. The room now serves as the museum’s treasury.
Choir, organ, and high altar
Choir stalls
The old choir retained its fourteenth-century enclosure walls in the centre of the nave. Parts of its Flemish-oak stalls remain on both sides of the nave. Francesc Gomar carved them between 1478 and 1488 for Archbishop Pere d’Urrea. Gothic tracery decorates the backs, while figurative medallions appear on the armrests. Jean de Tours and Henri de Bourgogne carved the pontifical seats in 1534. Part of the stalls was moved to the presbytery in 1963, and the dismantled western wall is kept in the Diocesan Museum.
The major organ
The major organ preserves a case designed by Jaume Amigó in 1560 from Flemish oak, poplar, and aspen. Jeroni Sanxo and Perris Austris carved its sculptures and reliefs between 1562 and 1566, while Pietro Paolo de Montalbergo painted and gilded the pipes and hinged doors. The closed doors show the Annunciation; when open, they display the Adoration of the Shepherds and the Resurrection in Mannerist style.
In 1929, the mechanism and pipes were replaced by those of a Romantic organ from Mar-i-Cel in Sitges. The case was restored from 2010, and a new instrument with 2,712 pipes and 53 stops was inaugurated on 16 June 2013.
Main altar and high altarpiece
The main altar is an early-thirteenth-century work in white marble associated with the episcopate of Aspàreg de la Barca. Its Romanesque frontal illustrates episodes from Saint Thecla’s life and martyrdom. The scenes include her hearing Saint Paul preach, an attempted burning, the beasts that spared her, and her miraculous liberation. The central composition shows God the Father blessing Thecla, with Christ and the Holy Spirit above. It has also been interpreted as Saint Paul teaching Thecla.
Archbishop Dalmau de Mur commissioned the Gothic high altarpiece, which Pere Johan made between 1426 and 1434. Its polychrome alabaster structure consists of a decorated plinth, predella, and upper body. The predella contains six scenes from the life and martyrdom of Saint Thecla, including the fire, beasts, serpents, the breaking of the bonds tying her to bulls, and the discovery of her relics. The central tabernacle shows the Man of Sorrows with Mary, Saint John, Nicodemus, and Joseph of Arimathea.
Twelve relief panels in the upper body depict the Annunciation, Nativity, Epiphany, Presentation, Passion, Resurrection, Ascension, Pentecost, and Coronation. Larger figures represent the Virgin and Child, Saint Thecla, and Saint Paul beneath tall gilded pinnacles. Saints and angels appear on the side doors and in the crowning section. At the rear is a Baroque tabernacle of alabaster and black stone, made in 1696 by Isidre Espinalt for Archbishop Josep Llinàs.
Chapels and devotional furnishings
The chapels preserve Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, and later works. The Chapel of Saint Mary of the Taylors was built before 1350 and later renovated. The Chapel of Saint Michael and All the Angels was founded by Archdeacon Guillem Botsom and was under construction by 1379. Its decoration includes angelic sculpture attributed to collaborators of Jaume Cascalls, late-fourteenth-century wall paintings resembling stained glass, windows made by Jeroni Granell in 1958, and a fifteenth-century Saint Michael altarpiece attributed to Bernat Martorell and brought from La Pobla de Cérvoles.
Baptistery
The former Chapel of Saint Ursula and the Eleven Thousand Virgins was built between 1340 and 1344 under Archbishop Arnau de Sescomes. It was converted into the baptistery around 1820. A star vault with sixteen decorated keystones covers the chapel, which also contains sculptures of virgins and paintings damaged during the Napoleonic invasion. Its one-piece Proconnesian marble baptismal font was probably reused from a Roman fountain.
Chapel of Saint Thecla
The Chapel of Saint Thecla was built between 1760 and 1775 in an academic classical style to house the saint’s principal relic. Tortosa jasper and white marble form its architecture. Reliefs depict the glorification and life of Saint Thecla, while Carles Salas made the sculptures of the cardinal virtues. Onofre Camps produced the chapel’s grille.
Renaissance chapels
The Chapel of Saint Francis was built in 1584 to a design by Jaume Amigó. The Chapel of Saint Mary Magdalene dates from 1536 and has a coffered barrel vault, a bench decorated with triglyphs and metopes, and grotesque ornament on the entrance arch and side walls. Its Renaissance altarpiece is attributed to Francesc Olives. The Chapel of Saint Salvador, built in 1535, uses similar Renaissance features and contains a nineteenth-century altarpiece of the Baptism of Jesus.
Museum collections and Roman remains
The Corpus Christi chapel retains fourteenth-century sculptures, fragments of wall painting, and Renaissance stained glass depicting apostles. Museum galleries preserve Roman archaeological pieces excavated at the cathedral, cloister, and adjoining gardens. Among them is an early-third-century AD sarcophagus showing Apollo and the Nine Muses, found beneath the pavement of the chapel’s apse.
The Diocesan Museum also holds medieval sculpture and painting, liturgical metalwork, manuscripts, choir books, reliquaries, processional crosses, furniture, ceramics, and tapestries dating from the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries. The tapestry known as The Good Life was probably woven at Arras or Tournai between 1460 and 1480. It measures approximately 4.65 by 10.65 metres and bears the inscription Hic est historia bonae vitae. Other series portray Joseph, Samson, Tobias, Cyrus the Great, Proverbs, and Famous Women.
Eastern chapel and bell tower
Santa Tecla l’Antiga
The Chapel of Santa Tecla l’Antiga stands at the eastern edge of the complex, in front of a garden occupying the former cemetery. Built in the first half of the thirteenth century in a transitional Romanesque-Gothic style, it contains a marble tomb traditionally identified with Archbishop Bernat d’Olivella, who died in 1287. The recumbent figure is attributed to Bartomeu of Girona and has a marble head and hands.
The bell tower
The Gothic bell tower rises over the southern smaller apse, between the transept and the eastern arm. Its first body was built around 1300 under Roderic Tello, its second between 1316 and 1327 under Ximeno de Luna, and its upper body in 1330 under Joan of Aragon by Guillem Clergue. The prism-shaped tower ends in an octagonal upper section and a small bell-temple added in 1511. It reaches approximately 70 metres.
Nineteen bells are distributed among the bell chamber, the Monks’ Room, the clock areas, and the summit. The largest, the 2,241-kilogram Capona, was cast by Antonio Fenodi in 1509 for the hours and prayers. Other bells date from 1250, 1313–1315, 1380, 1728, 1753, 1772, 1777, 1859, 1867, 1892, and 1905.
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