Montserrat: The magic of a mountain

Àngels Fusté

Marta Serra

MontserratIts history

• 880: The Virgin was found in a grotto.• 1025: Abbot Oliba founded the monastery beside the old chapel

devoted to the Virgin. Soon, it became a Romanesque sanctuary.• XII Century: A Romanesque image of the Virgin is carved.• 1223: Montserrat had the first choirboys in Europe.• 1423: A hermit from Montserrat went with Columbus to America. The

American devotion to the Lady of Montserrat started being spread.

MontserratIts history

• 1522: Saint Ignatius offered his sword to the Virgin and decided to become a pilgrim.

• 1811: Napoleon destroyed Montserrat. The Virgin’s image was hidden and saved from the destruction.

• 1880: The Lady of Montserrat is named the Sacred Queen of Catalonia.

• 1936-39: The monks had to leave Montserrat. It became a war hospital.

MontserratIts history

• 1970: 300 intellectuals complained about Franco’s Dictatorship, holding a sit-in in Montserrat’s monastery. They were demanding a better respect for the human rights.

• 1986: A huge fire destroyed a great part of the Montserrat mountain wood.

• 1987: The Catalan Goverment declared Montserrat mountain as a natural park.

Montserrat,the black Virgin

Montserrat, known as the Black Virgin is a Romanesque image carved in the XII Century. It was originally white skinned but, as time went by, its face and hands became black because the varnish started to get darker and darker.

27th April is the day of the Black Virgin of Montserrat. In the past, Montserrat was a popular name among Catalan women.

MontserratA place for culture

• Its library has almost 300.000 documents.• Its choirboys is the most ancient in Europe.• It saves different treasures as, for instance, an egyptian mummy.• Its museum has paintings by Greco, Picasso and Dalí, among

others.

Montserrat on the net (google earth)

Geology:‘Agulles’ (needles) of Montserrat

Flora and more ‘agulles’

Fauna: a young salamander

Days later…

Hiking in Montserrat

• If you have a GPS receiver for outdoor activities...

A track on the map

3d

The other Montserrat: an island.Volcano eruption from the space

Dome of Montserrat's Soufriere Hills Volcano

A caribbean treasure. Montserrat’s coastline