In the Middle Ages, it would have been impossible to walk across the main altar as you’re doing now, since an imposing painted and gilded fence would have stopped you. The purpose of the fence was to protect all the elements of worship, especially the relics, held inside. The altar was presided over by a monumental Gothic altarpiece of polychrome alabaster, the work of Bartolomeu de Robió. A few fragments of this altarpiece are on display at the Museum of Lleida.

What you can see today is a collection of wall paintings, extremely deteriorated, but restored, with multiple scenes alluding to the life of Jesus and the Virgin Mary. In the middle of the paintings, you will see a hole, which in reality is a cupboard where the cathedral’s most famous relic was kept: the Holy Cloth, or Jesus’s first diaper.

Beneath the paintings, you’ll find a plaque engraved in Latin reminding us that in 1203, the first stone of the church was laid. And across from the plaque, on the other side, there lies the Gothic tomb of Berenguer de Barutell, a canon of the cathedral. The tomb, created by the French sculptor Rotllí Gautier, provides an idea of what most of the great monumental tombs, which we know filled the church at the time, must have been like. A close look reveals that all the heads have been broken off. These mutilations, and many others, must be contextualised within the military period endured by the cathedral.