Montserrat, the serrated mountain and the Moreneta

About fifty kilometres from Barcelona, a mountain of reddish conglomerate rises abruptly from the Catalan plain with a profile of rounded spires and pinnacles. Its name, Montserrat, means sawn mountain, and a popular legend tells that angels shaped it with golden saws. Halfway up, among the rocks, stands a Benedictine monastery that for almost a thousand years has been the spiritual heart of Catalonia.

The Santa Cova and the founding

According to tradition, in 880 some shepherd children saw a light descending from the sky towards a cave on the mountain and heard music. The bishop, hurrying to the spot, found an image of the Virgin there. When an attempt was made to carry it elsewhere, the statue became so heavy that it could not be moved, a sign that the Madonna wished to stay there. On the site of the discovery, the Santa Cova, a chapel now stands, reached by a path.

Historically, the monastery was founded in 1025 by Abbot Oliba, a central figure of medieval Catalonia, Abbot of Ripoll and Bishop of Vic. Born as a small dependency of Ripoll, it grew rapidly thanks to pilgrimages and in 1409 became an independent abbey. In 1811 Napoleonic troops sacked and burned it, and most of the present buildings date from the rebuilding of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

The Moreneta

The statue venerated in the basilica is an enthroned Virgin with the Child, carved in wood in Romanesque style, probably in the twelfth century. The face and hands are dark in colour, hence the affectionate name Moreneta, the little dark one. The darkening is generally attributed to the alteration of varnishes and to candle smoke over the centuries. The Virgin holds a sphere in her right hand, which pilgrims touch through a pane.

In 1881 Pope Leo XIII proclaimed Our Lady of Montserrat patron of Catalonia. The shrine also played an important role in the modern history of the region, as a place where Catalan language and culture were preserved. Among its illustrious pilgrims was Ignatius of Loyola, who in 1522, according to his autobiographical account, kept vigil for a night before the Virgin and left his sword on the altar.

The Llibre Vermell and the Escolania

The monastery library preserves the Llibre Vermell, the red book, a manuscript of the late fourteenth century that contains, among other things, ten songs for pilgrims. The text explains that they were meant to let the faithful sing and dance decorously during vigils in the church. Among them is Ad mortem festinamus, a meditation on the brevity of life still performed today by many early music ensembles.

The musical tradition continues with the Escolania, the monastery's boys' choir, documented since the fourteenth century and regarded as one of the oldest singing schools in Europe. Some authors have also linked Montserrat to the Montsalvat of the Grail legend, a literary association with no historical basis. The mountain nonetheless remains a place where nature, music and devotion merge in a unique way.