Cathedral façade

The cathedral façade has three entrance doorways. The superb Gothic portal in the centre is flanked by enormous buttresses and a base with a blind row of trefoil-headed arches containing figures of apostles and prophets under canopies. The mullion in the centre has a pedestal decorated with scenes from Genesis and a marble statue of the Virgin Mary.

Above the lintel the tympanum is decorated with the theme of the Final Judgement under polylobed pierced stonework: Christ the Judge, semi-clothed, seated and represented as the Man of Sorrows, displays the wounds of His crucifixion; He is flanked by Angels bearing the Arma Christi, or symbols of the Passion.

Beneath his feet is a scene of two trumpeter angels in flight and twelve sepulchres, from which emerge members of the different ranks of the blessed, foreshadowing that great day in which the condemned are dragged by demons towards the jaws of the two-headed monster Leviathan, the enemy of souls and the symbol of hell.

This sculpture group and some of the free-standing figures are the work of Jaume Cascalls and Jordi de Déu, although not those that are of manifestly inferior quality. This highly ornate façade with its magnificent rose window, 11 metres in diameter, was built between 1330 and 1348. It was intended to be crowned with four pinnacles and a gablet which were never ultimately completed due to the ravages caused by the Black Death in 1348. The two side doors give onto the Epistle and Gospel naves.

Set in the wall above the right side portal is a Roman sarcophagus dating from the time of Theodosius –from 370 to 400 A.D.– depicting several scenes from the life of Christ on its frontal: the healing of the blind man Bartimaeus, the entreaty of the Canaanite woman, the healing of the lame man in the pool at Bethesda, the conversion of Zacchaeus, and the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. The tympanum on the left-hand portal is decorated with a scene of the Adoration of the Kings at the crib in Bethlehem.

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