The New Cathedral

The New Cathedral was built between 1761 and 1781 with endowments from the people of Lleida, King Carlos III and Bishop Joaquín Sánchez. Built in the baroque style with hints of French academic classicism, the main entrance is topped with the coat of arms of the Borbon family.

A staircase leads to three arched doorways fitted with iron gates and flanked on each side by towers. Inside, the nave and two aisles are lined with slim Corinthian columns supporting rounded arches. The choir, created in the Baroque style by Lluís Bonifas Massó, was destroyed during the Spanish Civil War (1936).

The Cathedral houses a sculpture by Josep Obiols of Our Lady of Montserrat, the patron of Catalonia, whom pilgrims visit on 27 April each year. Also celebrated on 2 February each year is the feast of the Verge del Blau (or Bruised Virgin), named because of the damage done when its sculptor, finding that his apprentice had completed the work to a higher artistic standard than his own, threw a hammer at the finished work.

The New Cathedral is also home to the Chapter Archive, regarded as the richest ecclesiastical archive in Catalonia, with a collection of more than 13,000 books, 16,000 parchments and a huge number of codices and early manuscripts. One of the jewels in the collection is the Lleida Bible, an historic illuminated codex and the largest of the ancient Spanish bibles in existence. There is also a periodicals library, a music archive and a collection of maps and photographs.