Montserrat Abbey Poster

Photography by Minerva Bloom. This is a low resolution image for the web, the print you'll get has sharper detail. Montserrat is a remarkable mountain and monastery in north-east Spain, 30 m. N.W. of Barcelona. The mountain is of grey conglomerate and from it's highest point, a view of the Pyrenees and the Mediterranean Sea as far as the Balearic Islands, can be seen. The Montserrat mountains consist of jagged pinnacles and spires rising abruptly from the base; it abounds with steep precipices. It was thus named in allusion to its jagged appearance, like the teeth of a saw. In mediaeval German legends, which located here the castle of the Holy Grail, the mountain is called Monsalwatsch, a name analogous to the modern Catalan form Montsagrat "sacred mountain." The Abbey owes its existence to an image of the Virgin, said to have been carved by St Luke, and brought to Barcelona by St Peter in A.D. 30. When the Moors invaded the province in 717 the image was taken to Montserrat, where a Benedictine convent appears to have already existed, and hidden in a cave. Nuestra Senora de Montserrat, Patrona de Cataluna ("Our Lady of Montserrat, Patron Saint of Catalonia") or "La Moreneta" - The Black Virgin, is one of the most celebrated images in Spain.