What Münzer Saw in Girona

Münzer mentions Girona Cathedral--here a view in the ambulatory. When he was there, the interior would have been largely complete (the present façade is 18th century), with its unique combination of an apse with ambulatory originally conceived as a three-aisled church, but finally concluded, after consultation with a large group of architects, as a vast single-naved one; and until 1936, the view down the nave would have been partially blocked by an enclosed choir.*

He also speaks of the river (the Onyar) that "runs through it." The river divides the old town from the new. From Münzer's description, there would have been houses on both sides, but the main town was on the Cathedral side.

As in the case of all the towns and cities that Münzer visited at this time (including so far Perpignan, le Boulou, Figueres and Girona), each would have been surrounded by walls with fortified gates (we've shown remains of these fortifications at Le Boulou and Perpignan's city gate).

*For a discussion of these choir stalls, see Justin E.A. Kroeson, Staging the Liturgy, the Medieval Altarpiece in the Iberian Peninsula, Louvain, Peeters, 2009, p. 219 and fig. 149)

Pictures: (1) Girona Cathedral, Silver Retablo Mayor; (2) Portionof Girona's walls; (3) the Onyar River that divides the city; (4) Girona cathedral, ambulatory vaults.