Castellón de Ampurias is a Latin foundation, with which time has dealt unkindly. Its parish church of Santa Maria is a noble monument of its prime. It was consecrated in 1064 and finished in the late Gothic period. To this last style belongs the west porch, with a pointed arch of six orders, and the figures of the Twelve Apostles beneath canopies in the jambs. The tympanum shows a relief of the Adoration of the Magi. Contrasting strikingly with this carefully chiselled and graceful Gothic work is the stern square campanile to the left, a remnant of the Romanesque days. The interior is early Gothic. The combination of this with the preceding style is strikingly shown in the principal apse. The altar, a single piece of marble, is carved with reliefs which exhibit (says Pi y Margall) the artist’s breadth of imagination rather than his skill.
Further inland is the venerable abbey of San Pedro de Roda, founded in the tenth century, and abandoned by the religious in the year 1799. To-day the monastic buildings are in utter ruin, but enough of the church remains to fill us with admiration for the loftiness of its nave, the harmonious admixture of the Romanesque with the pure classic forms, the skilful decoration of the various parts, and the sombre majesty of the whole.
The river Ter, which washes the walls of Gerona, is born among the snows of the Puigmal, the loftiest of the Eastern Pyrenees. Its stream is still ice-cold when it flows past the little town of San Juan de las Abadesas, which changed its name from Ripollet upon the foundation of an abbey within its precincts by Wilfred the Hairy, Count of Barcelona, in the year 877. The Count’s daughter was the first Abbess. The present abbatial church replaced the original structure in 1150. It is strictly cruciform, consisting of a nave and transept without aisles. There are only two columns in the church, these being planted at the entrance to the presbytery. The chancel is in the florid late Gothic style, contrasting oddly with the extreme simplicity of the rest of the fabric. Behind the altar is a figure of Christ, sculptured in the year 1250; in the forehead, it is believed, is contained a Host, which has preserved its integrity for seven centuries, and which it was found impossible to remove in the year 1598. The church has two choirs, both blocking the nave. The north and south porches were reserved respectively for men and women. The adjoining cloister is in good fifteenth-century style, and was probably designed or improved by the architect of the Palacio de la Diputacion at Barcelona.