Sant Pere de Rodes and the Master of Cabestany: Constructing a Myth Exhibitions
03/19/2026 - 06/29/2026

The Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya presents a major exhibition dedicated to the Master of Cabestany, one of the most distinctive and internationally recognised figures of Catalan Romanesque art, regarded by some as the "Picasso of the 12th century". The exhibition pays tribute to his masterpiece, the now-lost portal of Sant Pere de Rodes (1160–1170), and revisits the artist's itinerant career between Tuscany, the Midi and Catalonia-Navarre. Featuring more than one hundred works—including sculpture, painting, illuminated manuscripts, drawings and documents—from European museums and archives, including previously unpublished pieces, the exhibition reflects on the modernity of his visual language, the construction of the abbey's myth and the relationship between art, memory and landscape. The exhibition unfolds across three sections exploring heritage destruction, the monastery's medieval splendour and the classical roots of a profoundly retrospective artistic practice.