Monastery of Pedralbes

The Monastery was founded in 1326 by Queen Elisenda de Montcada, with the support of her husband, King James II of Aragon. It housed from the beginning a company of nuns of the Order of the poor sisters of Santa Clara, who resided in the monastery with some interruptions until 1983, when the monastery was turned into a museum. A small community of Clarisian nuns still resides in a contiguous building.
The monastic complex, remarkable for the great simplicity of its lines, is made up of the church and the monastery of the Order of Saint Clare arranged around a spacious cloister.

Highlights

✔ The church, a very sober and spacious building. It has a single nave covered with ribbed vaults, with heptagonal apse and side chapels located between the buttresses. Of particular note are the Gothic altarpiece, stained glass windows and the rose windows.
✔ The cloister, with square floor plan, is considered as the largest Gothic cloister in the world. It is three floors height and 40 meters long. The first two floors are formed by wide arches resting on columns. In a corner of the cloister we find a small Plateresque font, the Angel Fountain.
✔ The bell tower, octagonal in shape.
✔ The chapel of Sant Miquel, former cell of the abbess opened to the cloister. The chape is covered with wonderful murals realized in 1346 by Jaume Ferrer Bassa.
✔ The sepulchre of Queen Elisenda, the founder of the monastery, a marble tomb with the peculiarity of presenting two faces, one face looking at the church and the second at the cloister.
✔ The treasures of the monastery. A selection of the best works of art gathered by the community of nuns.
✔ The dependencies of the community: the refectory, the bedroom, the kitchen, the infirmary, the Chapter Room. It helps to understand the enclosed life of the monastic community.