Sant Pau del Camp, Barcelona

Sant Pau del Camp is a church preserved from a former Benedictine monastery in Barcelona. Its name recalls an earlier setting beyond the city walls, among open fields. The site is tied to Count Guifré II, whose grave slab records his death in 911 and who is credited with founding the monastery.

Its exposed position brought destruction in 985, when Almanzor’s army wrecked it; rebuilding and another attack followed before new city walls enclosed it in the fourteenth century. The church has a single nave arranged as a Greek cross, with an apse, smaller apses and a lantern above the crossing. At the doorway, reused marble capitals frame a tympanum showing Christ enthroned between Peter and Paul.

The outer walls carry Lombard arcades, with brackets carved as faces, plants and imaginary beasts. The cloister is the remarkable detail: added in the twelfth century, its arches have three or five lobes and show Islamic influence. Their paired columns carry capitals with scenes including Adam and Eve’s expulsion, sirens and warriors battling lions. The monks departed in 1835, and restoration began in 1940 after later fires.