Ripoll - Monasterio de Santa María

On the main square in the town center is the large Benedictine monastery of Santa María de Ripoll, originally founded in the sixth Century by the Visigothic king Reccared. The first church was consecrated in the ninth century and was enlarged in the 11th, giving it the form of a five-aisled basilica. The monastery became a great center of learning and culture; among those who studied here was the Benedictine monk Gerbert of Aurillac (c. 940-1003), the future Pope Silvester II.

The great Romanesque church was almost completely destroyed by fire in 1835, and the present church was built to replace it in 1883. Although very obviously a new church, it is modeled on the old one and excellently reproduces the Romanesque spatial effect