Vic Cathedral: A Multiphase Cathedral in Catalonia, Spain
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.5
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Spain
- Primary era
- Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Crown of Aragon, Spanish
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Cathedral
On this page20 sections
History
Vic Cathedral, officially the Cathedral of St. Peter the Apostle, is a Roman Catholic cathedral and minor basilica in Vic, Spain, and the seat of the Diocese of Vic. Its history extends from a cathedral documented in 516 through a Romanesque rebuilding under Bishop Oliba, later Gothic and Baroque additions, and the Neoclassical building consecrated in 1803.
Early Christian and Romanesque foundations
An early Christian basilica and a later Visigothic basilica existed at Vic, although their exact location is uncertain. A cathedral was recorded in 516, but it was probably destroyed during the Arab invasion of 717 and 718. In 886, Count Wilfred the Hairy repopulated Osona and restored the bishopric. A temporary church of rammed earth was built at that time, followed in the tenth century by a stone cathedral with three naves and two associated churches dedicated to Saint Mary and Saint Michael.
That building was replaced by the Romanesque cathedral associated with Oliba, an eleventh-century Catalan bishop and abbot whose episcopate at Vic lasted from 1018 to 1046. The cathedral was consecrated in 1038 by Archbishop Wilfred of Narbonne. Romanesque architecture was a medieval tradition marked by massive walls, rounded arches, and relatively small openings.
The identity of Vic’s original cathedral was debated for centuries between Saint Peter and the round church of Santa Maria la Rodona. The two churches retained distinct ceremonial associations: for many years, the bishops celebrated the first Christmas Mass at Santa Maria and the third at Saint Peter.
Gothic and Baroque transformations
About two centuries after the Romanesque rebuilding, Ramon d’Anglesola issued a pastoral letter calling on the faithful to support repairs. Vic Cathedral was not entirely rebuilt in the Gothic manner, but it received important Gothic additions. The upper cloister was begun in 1318, and Bishop Diego de Heredia added a transept in 1401. Pere Oller made the main altarpiece between 1420 and 1427, completing it in 1428. A doorway on the north side, dedicated to Saint John, was opened in 1585.
Baroque chapels were added along the north side in the seventeenth century. They formed the only completed part of an early project for a new cathedral. A general plan for the replacement building was prepared by Fra Josep de la Concepció in 1679. Baroque architecture developed from the Renaissance and favored more elaborate forms and dramatic decoration.
Santa Maria la Rodona was rebuilt from its foundations by Canon Guillem Bonfil in 1140 and consecrated about forty years later by Bishop Pere de Redorta. The circular church was demolished in 1787 to provide space for the present cathedral. Excavations later exposed its foundations, and the outline of the former church is marked in the pavement of Cathedral Square.
The Neoclassical cathedral
The present cathedral was built between 1781 and 1803. Its foundation stone was laid on September 24, 1781, and the building was consecrated on September 15, 1803. The project was designed by Josep Moretó i Codina, an architect born in Vic, in an academic Neoclassical style. Neoclassicism deliberately revived architectural forms associated with ancient Greece and Rome.
The new cathedral did not erase the site’s earlier identity. Its history incorporates Romanesque, Gothic, Baroque, and Neoclassical phases, while elements from earlier buildings were reused or preserved. In 1891, the Episcopal Museum of Vic opened opposite the cathedral and received works that had formerly belonged to it.
Twentieth-century destruction and reconstruction
Josep Maria Sert was commissioned to decorate the interior. He completed the first series of wall paintings between 1926 and 1930, and the cathedral was declared a Historic-Artistic Monument in 1931. In 1936, at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, revolutionary mobs set fire to the cathedral. The blaze destroyed Sert’s first decoration, badly damaged the vaults and dome, and caused much of the vaulting to collapse.
Repairs began immediately after the war. The crypt was rediscovered and an ambulatory, a passage running around the sanctuary or apse, was constructed. Sert created a second decoration between 1939 and 1945, reworking some earlier subjects and introducing new ones. The cycle remained unfinished when he died, and Miquel Massot i Tetas reproduced the Beatitudes on the lunettes. The cathedral reopened in 1945.
In 1947, Felip Vall i Verdaguer won a competition to decorate the vaults, but the scheme was never executed because funding could not be secured. A model and preparatory sketches and drawings survive from the project. Vic Cathedral is designated in Catalonia as a nationally important cultural monument in the historic-monument category and is identified by the Spanish cultural-property reference RI-51-0000432.
Remains
The cathedral stands in the historic center of Vic beside Cathedral Square. The present building is principally Neoclassical, with a white-stone facade and balustrade that combine the Doric and Tuscan orders. Its interior has three naves of equal height, a crossing formed by the transept, semispherical vaults, a dome, a polygonal apse, and side aisles containing two chapels beneath each bay of the vaults.
Facade and interior
Neoclassical facade
The facade of 1803 has a central rose window framed with reused Romanesque archivolts from the earlier cathedral. Two further windows flank it. Three entrances correspond to the three naves. The central entrance is the most elaborate, with pilasters, a pediment, and a sculpture of Saint Peter, the apostle traditionally regarded in Christianity as the first bishop of Rome.
Sert’s interior paintings
Sert’s second interior cycle consists of enormous oil-painted canvases fixed to the walls. Its restrained palette is nearly monochrome, using gold, brown, ochre, and touches of red. Massive figures and strong contrasts between light and shadow create an impression of depth. The paintings present the Christian mystery of Redemption. In the polygonal apse, a polyptych shows the Crucifixion between scenes of Christ’s burial and Ascension.
The transept walls contain four scenes relating to the loss of original justice and the Fall of Adam and Eve. The arches above the side chapels depict the martyrdoms of the apostles and evangelists. At the foot of the cathedral, a triptych contrasts Christ expelling the merchants from the Temple with Christ carrying the Cross. These scenes flank Pontius Pilate pronouncing the sentence while washing his hands. Above the cornice, Massot i Tetas reproduced the Beatitudes on the lunettes, using subjects Sert had employed in the decoration destroyed in 1936.
Romanesque tower and crypt
Bell tower
The detached Romanesque bell tower stands on the Gospel side, or left side, of the cathedral. It dates from the mid-eleventh century and is a Lombard Romanesque structure with a square plan. The tower rises 46 meters and is divided into six stages by stone bands. Its windows are set between Lombard arcuations, or rows of small arches. Ten bells are housed inside: six liturgical bells, one for the quarter hour, one for the hour, and two interior clock bells. The clock bells are at the top of the tower and are out of service.
Crypt
The Romanesque crypt belongs to the cathedral consecrated in 1038. Its capitals are older than the crypt itself because they were reused from the earlier pre-Romanesque cathedral. The crypt therefore preserves material from more than one phase of the cathedral’s development.
Cloister and chapter house
Two-level cloister
The surviving cloister has two levels. The lower level is Romanesque and dates from the twelfth century; the upper level is Gothic and dates from the fourteenth century. The Gothic gallery was built by the master builders Despuig, Lardenosa, and Valls. Its paired windows open both toward the cloister and outward toward the city, giving the upper level a distinctive form.
Chapter house
A Gothic doorway in the cloister leads to the chapter house, which was consecrated in 1360. It has a rectangular plan, an octagonal vault, and a small square apse at the rear. An older Romanesque chapter house was identified in 2018. This earlier space is 30 meters long and covered by a barrel vault.
The center of the cloister contains the tomb of Jaume Balmes, a philosopher born in Vic. The statue above the tomb was made by Josep Bover in 1853 for the city cemetery and transferred to the cloister in 1865.
Altarpiece, chapels, and archaeological remains
Main altarpiece
The main alabaster altarpiece stands along the wall of the ambulatory. Pere Oller made it between 1420 and 1427 and completed it in 1428. Dedicated to the Virgin Mary and Saint Peter, it was donated at the beginning of the fifteenth century by Bernard Despujol. The tomb of Bishop Oliba is beside it.
Baroque chapels
The Chapel of Saint Bernat Calbó lies beneath the bell tower and was designed by Jaume Vendrell in 1633. The saint’s remains are kept in a large repoussé silver urn made by the goldsmith Joan Matons between 1700 and 1728. The Chapel of the Virgin of Montserrat contains the tomb of Bishop Josep Torras i Bages and a recumbent Christ by Josep Llimona.
Earlier sculptural material
Reliefs from the former Romanesque portal and capitals from the cloister are preserved in the Episcopal Museum of Vic. A relief showing three prophets is held by the Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon, while other reliefs from the cathedral are preserved in museums elsewhere.
Santa Maria la Rodona
The former Santa Maria la Rodona occupied the area now forming Cathedral Square in front of the cathedral facade. Its exposed foundations and the pavement marking its circular plan remain visible as archaeological evidence of the demolished church.
