An Absent presence: Jerusalem in Montserrat

Abstract

This paper aims to trace the absent presence of Jerusalem in Montserrat mainly from the sixteenth to the late nineteenth century. The fundation myths and narrative of Montserrat are seasoned with biblical and local stories and legends that refer to Jerusalem and enhanced the prestige of the devotional complex by endowing it with ancient sacred roots. Puzzlingly, even thoug at the time monumental translations of Jerusalem were being created in other geo-cultural areas of the Iberian Peninsula, Central Europe, and North Italy, in seems that the symbolical associations to Jerusalem did not leave clear traces in the design of the complex and its representations. This lack of correspondence has led us to think of an absent presence of Jerusalem in Montserrat. This re-examination of traditions and metaphors associating Montserrat with Jerusalem turns some instances of the subtle presence of the Holy City more visible, and suggests some reasons for its invisibility in emblematic representations of the Catalonian mountain. Not least important, it is expected to assist us in the next phase the examination of the unpublished images. Such study may shed an additional light of the religious and socio-political discourse in the area and beyond it, as well as on the reciprocity between the influential Catholic institutions in Catalonia (and Spain as a whole) in the creation of new traditions.