Tortosa Cathedral

For the former cathedral in Tartus, Syria, see Cathedral of Our Lady of Tortosa.

Cathedral of Saint Mary
The cathedral in the midst of the old city
Religion
Affiliation	Roman Catholic
Diocese	Tortosa
Year consecrated	1447
Location
Location	Tortosa, Catalonia
Interactive map of Cathedral of Saint Mary
Coordinates	40°48′52″N0°31′21″E / 40.81444°N 0.52250°E / 40.81444; 0.52250
Architecture
Type	Cathedral
Style	Gothic and Baroque
Groundbreaking	1347
Completed	1757

The Catedral of Saint Mary of Tortosa is a cathedral located in Tortosa, Catalonia, Spain and seat of the Diocese of Tortosa. The present structure is located in the center of the city's old town.

Design

Its construction began in 1347 on the remains of a previous Romanesque cathedral. The cathedral was completed two centuries later. It was designed by Benito Dalguayre and has three naves with chapels between the buttresses and an ambulatory with radial chapels. ^[1] The church is constructed in the Catalan Gothic style, though the façade, from the 18th century, is Baroque.

The cathedral’s apse has a rare heptagonal plan, a form that presented notable geometric and construction challenges in the Middle Ages because no exact classical method existed for setting out a regular heptagon. Archival drawings and construction records indicate that the apse was laid out using a modular proportional system—centered on a 9:8 ratio linking the radial chapels to the overall plan—rather than through abstract geometric construction (Josep Lluís i Ginovart, Gerard Fortuny Anguera, Agustí Costa Jover, and Pau de Sola-Morales Serra, Nexus Network Journal 15 (2013): 325–348).

Archeological excavations on the site revealed that the cathedral was constructed on the site of an older Romanesque church, which was itself built on the site of the old Roman forum of Tortosa.

Images

• 
  Cathedral plan
• 
  The cathedral's Baroque façade
• 
  Nave, looking toward the altar
• 
  Apse and ambulatory
• 
  The cathedral was surrounded by buildings until 2015
• 
  The cathedral in 2022
• 
  Cathedral cloister
• 
  Baroque entryway to the cloister
• 
  Window in the cloister
• 
  13th century plaque inside the cathedral

History

The Cathedral was the location of the famous Disputations of Tortosa, where Jews were forced to defend their faith or convert. After two weeks of arguments, a Papal Bull was issued by the Antipope Benedict XIII that forbade the learning from the Talmud or any other Jewish book that attacked Christianity.

References

1. "Tortosa Cathedral in Tortosa, Spain: Monuments in Tortosa | Spain.info in English." Tortosa Cathedral in Tortosa, Spain: Monuments in Tortosa | Spain.info in English. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Feb. 2013.

External links

• Web de l'ajuntament de Tortosa sobre la Catedral. (in Catalan)
• Plana del Bisbat de Tortosa (in Catalan)
• Canònica de Tortosa.
• Descripció i fotografies (in Catalan)