Chapel of the Holy Sacrament
Highlights of the Cathedral / Chapel of the Holy Sacrament
A classical doorway flanked by two granite columns brought by Emperor Hadrian in the 2nd century BCE to decorate the sacred area of the Temple of Augustus provides the entrance to the chapel. Once inside, a massive, slightly pointed barrel vault can be seen, which originally formed part of the 12th-century Canons’ Refectory. On the initiative of Archbishop Antoni Agustí, a true Renaissance man and erudite promoter of humanism in the Iberian Peninsula, this space was converted into the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament, his private funeral chapel.
The remodelling, carried out between 1582 and 1592 from a design by Jaume Amigó and directed by Pere Blai, consisted of perforating the Romanesque vault to fit a hemispherical dome on a tambour. The main altarpiece shows scenes from the Old and New Testament that prefigure the Eucharist. The ensemble was painted on slate by the Dutchman Isaac Hermes Vermey around 1587 and is framed by pilasters and mouldings of Tortosa jasper. In the centre are the wonderful doors of the sacrarium, the work of Gaspar de Lira, flanked by marble statues of the prophets Aaron and Melchisedek.
The niches in the side walls hold works of art such as the Coronation of the Virgin by the Genoese artist Luca Cambiaso before 1586, as well as the tomb of Archbishop Agustí, in alabaster from Sarral, designed by Pere Blai in the style of the Medici tombs by Andrea del Verrocchio
