The Romanesque style was born in the year 1000 in the north of Italy and rapidly spread all over Europe.
At the end of the 11th century, the Boí Valley was a feudal valley: peasants working the land under the dominion of the feudal lords, the Erill family.
12th century With the riches that the Erills received from their participation in the reconquest campaigns they sponsored the construction of churches in the valley, hiring for the work the best builders and artists of the time.
This, combined with the proximity between the various settlements in the valley, led to a cluster of churches of a high artistic standard in a very small area.
Yet more exceptional is the fact that these churches have been conserved through the centuries with hardly any alterations to their initial design.
The unity of their architectural style is one of the main features of the Romanesque churches in the Boí Valley.
In 1907, an expedition was organised by the Institut d'Estudis Catalans, with the purpose of learning about and studying the monuments in the Ribagorza. This mission, led by Josep Puig i Cadafalch, obtained proof of the existence of artistic riches in the Boí valley.
The churches in the Boí Valley taken as a whole are a paradigm of all Catalonian Romanesque art. Apart from their intrinsic beauty and meticulous harmony with the landscape, these buildings have played a unique role in Catalonian art because of their rich decorative elements and furnishings, which have been kept in a state of conservation and quality that is nothing short of extraordinary.
This is why this unique monumental ensemble was included in the World Heritage List by the UNESCO in the year 2000.
The Renaixença cultural movement started in Catalonia in the mid 19th century. With the intention of learning about and studying the country's Romanesque monuments, in 1907 the Institut d’Estudis Catalans organised a series of historical-literary trips.
This zeal to learn about the country, to define and vindicate a unique identity, led to several photographs, drawings and maps being made, which were to serve as the basis for several publications. These included the work "Les pintures murals romàniques", which many years later was used by collectors and foreign museums as a catalogue for the purchase and transfer of these works of art.
Given this danger, the Barcelona Board of Museums decided to carry out a "rescue" process. Most of the Romanesque mural paintings were extracted using the strappo technique and transferred to the Museu d´Art i Arqueologia in Barcelona between the years 1919 and 1923.
