TARRAGONA, ARCHDIOCESE OF. - Metropolitan see and capital city of the province of the same name in Spain. It has an area of 2,394 sq km with a population of 215,000 inhabitants, all Catholic, distributed among 151 parishes, served by 220 diocesan priests and 44 religious; it has 2 seminaries, 12 male religious communities and 65 female ones (Ann. Pont. 1953, p. 418).
Its suffragan dioceses are Barcelona, Gerona, Lérida, Solsona, Tortosa, Urgel and Vich. The patroness of the archdiocese is the Blessed Virgin under the invocation of her Nativity. Feast day 18 September. An Iberian center under the name of Cullipolis, in the 6th century B.C. it was populated by the Ilergetes. In the battle of Cissa, Scipio defeated the Carthaginian Hanno; from then on the city was called Tarraco by the Romans and was elevated in 16 B.C. by Augustus to a colony (Iulia Victrix Triumphalis) and to the capital of Hispania Tarraconensis. From then on the seat of the imperial legate, the city flourished more and more, as an agricultural and commercial center. Its wine was renowned (Martial, 13, 118). Its Roman ruins are imposing: the amphitheater partly excavated in the rock, the Palace of Augustus or Roman praetorium, the Roman theater, the Roman aqueduct, etc. It suffered devastation by the Franks in 264, then was destroyed by the Goths in 460, occupied by the Moors in 714, then conquered by Louis of Aquitaine and by Ramon Berenguer, was retaken again by the Moors and sacked; it was definitively occupied by Alfonso the Battler in 1220. It rose up in 1620; it passed to the Archduke of Austria upon the death of Charles II and returned under Philip V by the Treaty of 14 March 1714. It withstood a hard siege by the French in 1813. The first known bishop of T. is St. Fructuosus (v.), martyred in 259 together with his deacons Augurius and Eulogius (P. Franchi de' Cavalieri, Gli Atti di s. Fruttuoso di T., in Note agiografiche, 8 [Studi e testi, 65], Vatican City 1935, pp. 129-99). The relics of St. Fructuosus were later brought to Italy by St. Prosperus of T. in 711.
The see of T. was represented in 314 at the Council of Arles by the priest Probatius and the deacon Castorius; then Himerius in the time of Damasus and Siricius; Ascanius in 465; John, who convened the first provincial Synod at T. on 6 November 516 and in 517 at Gerona; Sergius in 535 was present at the Council of Barcelona and in 546 at Lérida; then Tranquillinus around 560; Artemius, who sent Stephen to the Third Council of Toledo and was at the provincial Synods of Saragossa in 599 and of Barcelona; Eusebius (610-32), who was at the Council of Egara; Audax (633-38) was at the Fourth Council of Toledo, while at the sixth and seventh was Protasius (637-46), who also sent his delegates to Toledo to Councils XIII, XIV and XV; Verus assisted at the XVI and XVII. Then came the Muslim invasion under his successor George. Louis the Pious managed to occupy the city for a short time; part of the territory passed under the diocese of Barcelona, while the rank of metropolitan passed to Narbonne, until 759. Berenguer of Rosanes, bishop of Vich, obtained the reconquest of T. in 1116 through the efforts of Ramon Berenguer III the Great, and Pope Urban II conferred on him the pallium and the appointment as archbishop of T.; the same honor was conferred on his successor St. Oldegarius, bishop of Barcelona; he took part in the Councils of the Lateran (1123) and of Clermont (1130) and died on 6 March 1137. He was succeeded by Gregory, formerly abbot of Cuscane; later there were the archbishops Aspargo Barca, Pedro Zagarriga, Augustin (1576-86), A. Perez (1634-37), F. de Armanya y Font (1785-1803).
The Cathedral was built between 1171 and 1331 on the hill where originally the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus stood and later a mosque. It constitutes one of the best examples of Gothic art; its sturdy Romanesque apse looks like a fortress; then, at the beginning of the 13th century, under the direction of Brother Bernardo (d. 1256) it was continued in Gothic style, later flamboyant Gothic was inserted, then the plateresque and churrigueresque styles as in the side chapels, added between the 16th and 18th centuries. It measures 104 m in length; it is 30 m wide in the naves with a transept of 45 x 15 m, surmounted by an octagonal dome 28 m high. The Romanesque bell tower at its base was continued in the 14th century and reaches, though unfinished, a height of 65.40 m. The facade, in Gothic style, is reached by means of a broad flight of steps. The portal, begun in 1278 by master Bartholomew, called the Norman, presents the Virgin among the Apostles; later other statues were added by Giacomo Castalis (1475); the artistic panels are from 1510. The two arms of the transept are illuminated by two rose windows with artistic stained glass of 1574, much restored.
In the retrochoir is the tomb of James I, king of Aragon, called the Conqueror (d. 1276). The choir stalls are in the flamboyant Gothic style of the 15th century; the two ambos belong to the 13th century. On the high altar is a large marble retable sculpted by P. G. de Vallfogona and G. de La Mota in 1426 with scenes from the life of St. Thecla and statues of the Blessed Virgin. In the right transept are the artistic chapels of St. Thomas Aquinas, with the venerated image of the Cristo de la Salud (1508) and the polychrome statues of the Madonna and St. John; the chapel of St. Luke and that of St. Olagarius in Romanesque style; that of St. Roch and St. Sebastian in Baroque style. In the left transept the chapel "de los Sastres" (of the tailors) erected by Archbishop Pedro de Clasquer (1358-80), who is buried there; the chapel of the Most Holy Sacrament erected by Pietro Blay in 1586 with a dome; and the minor chapels of St. Barbara and of Sts. Cosmas and Damian. In the right nave is the baptistery in the chapel "de las Virgines" in Gothic style (1341); the tomb of Card. Cervantes de Gaeta (d. 1575); the chapel of St. Michael in Gothic style (1360), those of St. Thecla, patroness of T. (1760-75), of St. Francis from the end of the 16th century, like the other one of the Holy Family.
In the left nave the chapel of St. Francis contains the tombs of the archbishops Teres (d. 1603) and Lopez Pelaez (d. 1918); the chapel of Monserrat in flamboyant Gothic style, erected by Card. Pedro De Cardona, who is buried there (d. 1530); there is also the tomb of Archbishop Costa y Borras (d. 1864); in the chapel of St. Thomas, also in the same style, is the tomb of Archbishop Felix y Solans (d. 1870); the artistic retable at the altar is the work of M. Ortoneda and comes from Solivella.
The cloister is entered through a Romanesque portal, as are the ambulatories with light ogival vaults, decorated and sculpted capitals; some represent the "procesión de las ratas" (the mice burying the cats). On the south side are fragments of the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus and an Arabic arch with an inscription of the year 349 of the Hegira (that is, 960 A.D.) belonging to the door of the mihrab of the ancient mosque. Further on is the chapel called that of Corpus Christi, formerly of the Chapter, now a section of the Diocesan Museum containing retables of the 14th-15th centuries, paintings, liturgical goldsmith work, etc.; on the north side of the cloister is the chapel of St. Mary Magdalene; further on are remains of the Roman orx, the chapels of N. Señora del Claustro, with a much venerated statue of the Blessed Virgin of the 14th century, of St. Thecla (1535) and of N. Señora de las Nives.
The ancient convent of St. Francis was transformed partly into a government office and partly into a school; the College of the Jesuits was used as a barracks, just as the convents of the Mercedarians and the Carmelites were also converted to military use. Near the diocesan Museum are the diocesan Archives and the Chapter Hall with a 15th-century tapestry known as "de la Buena Vida," Renaissance retables, sacred furnishings, missals and antiphonaries, 52 tapestries of the 15th-17th centuries. On the ruins of the Roman Capitoline hill rises the Archbishop's Palace, rebuilt by Romualdo Mon y Valarde (1815-19). The conciliar Seminary of St. Paul and St. Thecla was founded by Cardinal Archbishop Gaspare de Cervantes in 1568 as a pontifical university, immediately after the Council of Trent. The new Seminary near the Cathedral was built in 1886 by Benito Villamitjana on the site where the ancient chapel of St. Paul stood. The "capilla di S. Pablo" was erected in 1243 in Romanesque-Gothic style; its entrance is in the courtyard of the conciliar Seminary or "Universidad Pontificia," a building erected in 1883 on the ancient convent of S. Pablo. The "capilla de S. Magin" dates from 1776. The "capilla de S. Tecla de la Vella" of the 13th century was erected above a Romanesque church that served for some time as the cathedral: in it is the tomb of Archbishop Bernardo De Olivella (d. 1287). The church dedicated to the Most Holy Trinity dates from 1814; that of the Sangre or of Nazareth, on the other hand, is from the end of the 16th century.
Near the sea, in the Roman amphitheater, "el Milagro" arose through the work of the Knights Templar; it then passed to the Trinitarians, and was subsequently reduced to a penitentiary. In the fishermen's quarter the church of St. Peter was erected in 1878. Near T. is the "hospital de l'Infante" for pilgrims, erected in Gothic style in 1341.
The provincial archaeological Museum contains the most interesting collection of Roman and medieval antiquities in Spain, after that of Madrid, including surviving fragments from the monastery of Poblet, and the provincial Library in which are gathered volumes, manuscripts and incunabula from the Monasteries of Poblet, S. Creus, Scala Dei and Escornabbón. There has its seat the Real Sociedad Arqueológica Tarraconense, instituted in 1845, which has published its archaeological Bulletin since 1901.
A large Christian cemetery situated south of the city was found in 1923 and had been partly ransacked by seekers of marbles and sarcophagi between the 12th and 13th centuries. From the methodical exploration carried out by the Rev. J. Serra Vilaró from 1926 onward it emerges that in this cemetery eighteen different forms of burial were used; some of the deceased were deposited in a pit in the ground inside a wooden chest, then covered with fragments of amphora and earth. In other cases the pit in the ground was lined with tiles or slabs, or with stones and mud, or stones and lime; sometimes the covering was made with imbrices arranged in two slopes (a cappuccina); very frequent was burial inside whole amphorae from which the narrow terminal part had been removed, or with pieces of amphora joined by means of lime; some pit tombs were lined on the inside with white or red plaster and covered either with slabs or tiles arranged in a double slope or with horizontal stone or marble slabs. Many are the sarcophagi in stone or marble; some carved with pagan subjects, others simply with a strigillated front; some sarcophagi were obtained by hollowing out blocks coming from earlier buildings; some lead sarcophagus has also been found. All the sarcophagi were buried; some tombs had at the ground surface a small emerging mound consisting of a rubble bed of 2 x 1 m with inclined side walls to prevent water infiltration. On the surface this layer was smoothed and decorated in white or red; in some tombs the mound reaches the dimensions of 3.50 x 3 m with a high step of 0.35 m. Near such mounds were gathered bones of domestic animals, oysters and remains of other foods, and also fragments of glass and clay vessels. One tomb moreover presents the mensa in the form of a cline as in some tombs at Rome and at the Isola Sacra. In some tombs the marble inscription was fixed in the mound, in the richer ones there were decorations and epitaphs in mosaic; one presents a figure in a toga, one the Good Shepherd, one a floral and geometric theme. The corpse was often placed over a layer of quicklime; traces of clothing and of golden threads, needles, buttons of bone and metal have been found. Two larger cells were built with large blocks of stone in quadrilateral form, with a groin vault and with three arcosolia inside. Much funerary furniture was found, such as clay vessels, lamps and also an articulated ivory doll.
The basilica found in this cemetery was three-aisled, with a semicircular apse; beneath its pavement tombs were arranged; in the material employed for the construction fragments of Christian inscriptions were identified; one of the side walls was built over a row of sarcophagi. The elements furnished by the exploration make it possible to recognize in this construction the basilica erected after the devastation of 409 over the tombs of the martyrs of T. of 259, that is, the bishop St. Fructuosus (v.) and his deacons Augurius and Eulogius. Around their tombs the cemetery area subsequently developed.
The epigraphic sylloges have handed down the sepulchral poems of the bishops John and Sergius of the 6th century (G. B. De Rossi, Inscriptiones christianae, II, Rome 1888, p. 294). The epitaph is also known of a certain Euticius, priest of the "civitas Albitana" near T. The inscription of a Marturia with 4 and 2 contains the date of the year 393 and the acclamation "vivas cum beatos"; that of a Pientia with the date of the year 415 and the scratched cross; that of a "vir honoratus Aventinus" presents the dates of the years 421 and 461, two others offer respectively the dates of the years 471 and 503. Among the formulas are remembered those: "in sanctorum sede quiescis; sancta Christi in sede quiescis," and "sperana resurrectionem a Domino."
Among the ancient monasteries are remembered that of S. Creus, founded by Ramon Berengario IV for the Cistercians and abandoned in 1885; the monumental entrance gate leads into a courtyard with the fountain known as that of St. Bernard; on the right is the abbatial Palace and a small cloister of 1625. The church, divided by pillars into three naves, was begun in 1174 in Romanesque style and finished in Gothic style in 1211. Many kings of the Catalan dynasty were buried there, among them Peter II (1285), James II (1377) and his wife Blanche of Anjou, the Italian admiral Roger of Lauria (1304), etc. South of the church is the great cloister (1304-41) in Gothic style where many Catalan nobles were buried; the chapter hall is three-aisled and contains tombs of abbots; above is the novices' dormitory; to the side the storerooms and the ancient cloister (1153)
in Romanesque-Gothic style and other monastic buildings. At S. Creus the chivalric Order of Montesa was founded in 1316.
The monastery of St. Mary of Poblet was founded in 1153 by Ramon Berenguer IV, Count of Barcelona, who donated it to the Cistercians; its name, however, derives from a hermit who lived in the place around 1120. The monastery became one of the most sumptuous and wealthy in Spain thanks to the endowments it received from the kings of Aragon, who built a palace there and were buried there. In 1835 the monastery was plundered and set on fire, but it was restored and given back to the Cistercians in 1940. They now occupy the part known as "las Casas nuevas." After passing the "Parco dei Monaci" one comes to a courtyard where on the right is the Gothic chapel of St. George (1442); then, through the royal gate, one enters another courtyard with the remains of the guesthouse, the hospital, the palace and the ruined church of St. Catalina. One then comes to the "Puerta dorada" (1480-99): there are fragments of frescoes relating to the history of the abbey. The church has a Baroque façade with statues of the Virgin, St. Benedict and St. Bernard, between columns of jasper, and at the corners hexagonal towers. The interior has three naves and was built by Alfonso II of Aragon in the 12th century; the high altar, donated by Charles V, is in alabaster and is the work of Damián Forment (1529). There are mausoleums of the kings Alfonso II, John I and II, James I the Conqueror, Peter the Ceremonious and Ferdinand of Antequera. Behind the apse is the Romanesque cloister; furthermore, the cloister of St. Esteban (13th century) leads into a series of vaulted halls.
Peter of Aragon's library was in part transferred to T. In the chapter hall are the tombs of the abbots. The palace, begun in 1397 by King Martin, remained unfinished.
Vilanova de Esconalbon is an ancient Augustinian monastery founded in 1162 and built on the ruins of a Roman fortress on the Mola, at an altitude of 700 m; ruined in 1835, it was redeemed in 1911. A Romanesque portal leads into a Romanesque pointed-arch church (1165-1240) with an adjoining Romanesque cloister and monastic buildings, which also contain an art collection and a rich library.
The ruins of the famous Carthusian monastery of Scala Dei rise near Villelas, on the slopes of the Sierra de Nonstrant; Scala Dei was the mother house of almost all the Carthusian monasteries of Spain and Portugal; it was founded by Alfonso I in 1163, and Peter II established the priory there; there one admires the remains of two cloisters and of the monks' cells; a triple portal, the hermitage called of St. Anthony, the Correria, the Grange of the Bon Repos, the chapel de la Piedad. The surviving Library is in the Seminary of T. - See plate CXXVII.
Bibliography33 works
T. y sus discípulos refugiados en Italia en el año 711, in Bibl. hist. de la Bibl. Balmes, 2ª serie, 16 (1943); F. Camprubi Alemani, El monumento paleocristiano de Centcelles, Barcellona 1953.
Enrico Josi