Barcelona Cathedral’s Pietà: A Gothic Masterpiece with a Secret Past

Hi friends! Today, we stroll down one of those shadowed medieval streets that can still surprise even the most seasoned Barcelona walker — el carrer de la Pietat. It’s a place where history is carved into stone… or, in this case, molded in resin.

The famous tympanum that’s not what it seems

Visitors flock to the Gothic Quarter for its cobblestone charm, intricate façades, and the hushed coolness of cloisters. Right where carrer de la Pietat meets the side of Barcelona’s Cathedral, above a sealed doorway into the cloister, you’ll see a striking relief: Mary cradling the lifeless body of Christ, symbols of the Passion clustered around them, and, kneeling humbly in the corner, the canónigo Berenguer Vila — the man who commissioned the piece in the late 15th century.

For decades, most assumed they were looking at the real medieval carving. In truth, what you see today is a replica. The original — carved in oak by the German sculptor Michael Lochner — rests safely inside the Museu Diocesà.

From Gothic Germany to the streets of Barcelona

Michael Lochner wasn’t just any itinerant craftsman. Arriving in Barcelona in the late 1400s, he brought with him the stylistic language of German Gothic art — sharp folds in garments, expressive faces, and a heightened emotional realism. Alongside the Pietat, Lochner is credited with works inside the Cathedral choir and a now-lost retable of Sant Pere for Premià de Dalt, destroyed during the Spanish Civil War.

The Pietat was once in place over this very door until one night, decades ago, thieves tried to prise it from the wall. The plot was foiled by the Guardia Urbana, but the scare convinced Cathedral officials to replace it with a resin copy. Some whisper the attempt bore the signature of the infamous art thief Erik el Belga, though the link has never been officially proven.

Carrer de la Pietat: a medieval artery

Carrer de la Pietat is more than just the stone backdrop to this story. Winding along the northern flank of the Cathedral, the street owes its name to the very sculpture we’ve been talking about. Historical records place it as part of the medieval precinct known as the barri de la Sede, home to clergy, scribes, and artisans linked to the Cathedral works.

In medieval times, the street was a service corridor between the ecclesiastical quarter and the episcopal palace. Here, merchants brought stone, wood, and supplies; choristers and canons passed between the cloister and their dwellings. Narrow, shaded, and somewhat secretive, carrer de la Pietat retains that hushed quality today — a whispering path between centuries.

The cloister: oasis and symbol

The cloister of Barcelona Cathedral, accessed from the main nave or through side doors like the one beneath the Pietat, is a world apart from the bustle outside. Built between the 14th and 15th centuries, it surrounds a garden filled with palms, orange trees, and the famous gaggle of white geese — 13 in number, symbolizing the age at which Saint Eulàlia was martyred.

For clergy, the cloister was a spiritual and practical center — a place for processions, chapter meetings, and quiet contemplation. For us modern visitors, it is a stone-walled time capsule. Standing inside, you can almost hear the echo of sandals on flagstones and the distant peal of bells.

Stories in stone

The Pietat portal isn’t the only sculptural treasure along this street. Look up and you’ll spot gargoyles — dragons, grotesques, and even more playful creatures — jutting from the buttresses. Their function was practical (to drain rainwater) but their artistry, like Lochner’s work, was deeply tied to the imagination of the time.

Other chapels inside the cloister bear coats of arms from Barcelona’s guilds, reminders that the Cathedral’s grandeur was as much a civic as a religious endeavor.

A walk worth slowing for

For photographers, carrer de la Pietat offers layered perspectives — arches framing arches, light filtering between stones, and the drama of the Pietat relief catching the sun at certain hours. Knowing that the carving is a replica doesn’t diminish its power. In fact, it adds a layer of intrigue: a secret between the city and those who care to look closer.

And here lies the essence of Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter — beauty woven with stories, some whispered in archives, others hidden in plain sight.

So next time you pass the Cathedral, slip down carrer de la Pietat. Pause before the Pietat. And think of the hands that shaped it five centuries ago, the near-loss that prompted its retreat indoors, and the quiet street that still bears its name.

Sant Jordi Fountain Faucet at Barcelona Cathedral Cloister

La Font de Sant Jordi (Saint George Fountain), of which Barcelona Photoblog brings you this faucet detail, is one of the most renown fountains in the city as it is part of the impressive cloister at Barcelona Cathedral, perhaps the second most visited sacred place after Sagrada Familia. 

Although the gothic Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia, built in 150 years, is appealing enough once you set foot on the main nave it wouldn't be that remarkable without its cloister, a well-balanced quiet place, where light, water plants, magnolias, palm trees, geese and medieval fountains create that utmost joyous design that we now prefer to call feng shui. 

The fountain as such, crowned by a 1970 figure (by Emili Colom) of Sant Jordi on his horse on top of a mossy rock, was built under the supervision of architect Andreu Escuder in 1449. Nevertheless, the water was spouting here directly from the mountain of Collserola since 1356. 

This octogonal shaped architectural piece is no ordinary fountain, not only because of these beautiful faucets with intriguing faces that might as well represent archangels or demons on whose rump a small kid figure seems to be riding a bird or a horse (this can be the subject of rivers of ink for an unleashed imagination), but because since 1637 during every Corpus Christi Feast it is adorned with flowers and an empty egg that dances frantically on the water jet. Such tradition is known as L'ou com balla (previous post).

Here are some more pictures of the Fountain of Sant Jordi.

L'Ou Com Balla or The Dancing Egg, Barcelona Cathedral

L'Ou Com Balla tradition at Barcelona Cathedral, Barri Gotic, Barcelona

In the cloister of the Cathedral of Barcelona there is a beautiful fountain decorated with flowers that reminds you of idyllic gardens, of some paradise lost on earth.

It is the Sant Jordi fountain. Surfing over the soft cushion of its water jet once a year you can see a fragile eggshell that seldom falls which is called the L'Ou Com Balla, which translated literally from Catalan means how the egg dances or how dances the egg.

This is not the only place in Barcelona where you can find a dancing egg (there's one a la Casa de l'Arcadia or at Museum Frederic Mares' courtyard for example) but I think this is the one with more tradition, a tradition that goes back to the XIVth century and has to do with Corpus Christi celebrations, the eggshell itself representing the body of Christ.

The exact date to see L'Ou com Balla changes but it takes place at the end of May or in June depending on Corpus Christi Feast.

Barcelona Cathedral, Ceiling

Santa Eulalia Cathedral. A view of the ceiling.

barcelona barcelona+photoblog barcelona+photos barcelona+pictures barcelona+photography barcelona+images nikon+d70s

Celestial Glimpse-Barcelona Cathedral

barcelona barcelona+photoblog barcelona+photos barcelona+pictures barcelona+photography barcelona+images nikon+d70s