DURAN-PORTA - The Lombard Masters As A Deus Ex Machina PDF

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The Lombard masters as a deus ex machina in Catalan First Romanesque

JOAN DURAN-PORTA
The importance of the Lombard tradition in the seminal

generation of Romanesque architecture is a subject that has
been discussed at length. Traditionally, the Lombard focus has
been regarded as a determining factor in a conception of
architecture which has been widely called First Romanesque
after eminent Catalan art historian Josep Puig i Cadafalch. This
architectural model has essentially been characterised by the use
of a small, extremely ductile masonry, and by the application of
a highly particular ornamental lexis on the surface of the walls
based on combinations of lesenes and series of blind arches.
The very term First Romanesque was coined by Puig i
Cadafalch to replace the concept of Lombard architecture,
which had an identical meaning until the first third of the 20th
century, associating the northern Italian tradition and the
itinerant practices of the Lombard builders with the origin and
dissemination of a Romanesque sub-style, the Lombard
Romanesque. The purpose of this article is precisely to reanalyse the evidence and arguments that reveal the presence of
the so-called Lombard masters in Catalonia and how they
introduced the technological underpinnings of the new
Romanesque architecture. It is true that today the First
Romanesque is often denied the category of an architectural
style, yet it is generally accepted that at least the building
techniques used in most of the buildings from the first half of
the 11th century in Catalonia was rooted in Italy, and that its
arrival in the Catalan counties was due to bands of itinerant
Lombard builders who were hired to reproduce the
construction methods of their home country in Catalonia1.
Paradoxically, when I began to take an interest in these
issues some years ago, I thought that this Lombard hypothesis
had already begun to lose ground in the historiography devoted
to the origins of the Romanesque, specifically the Catalan
Romanesque. Several French authors, Elianne Vergnolle in
particular, roundly discredited the existence of the Lombard
masters, ce mythe des maons lombards itinerants, as the
transmitters and creators of the new architecture outside their
homeland 2. However, I later saw that this was a minority
interpretation, and that when it does appear it tends not to be
accompanied by solid argumentation or analysis of the issue,
perhaps because from the French vantage point it is too much
of a southern affair, overly peripheral. Since my initial position
was to share the negative opinion about the existence of the
Lombard masters, my aim from the start has been to determine

to what extent the proof of the Lombard presence in Catalonia
after AD 1000 was solid (or, indeed, not solid).
I would like to stress that my intentions are not to deny the
contacts between Catalan and Lombard architecture in the heart
of the Middle Ages, nor do I want to claim that there are no
contributions from abroad in the roots of the Catalan
Romanesque. What I aim to demonstrate is that the theoretical
model accepted until now, based on a massive migration of
Lombards as a vehicle for introducing Romanesque architecture
(or techniques), has not been and cannot be demonstrated, and
that it is the result of a fallacious interpretation (or an overinterpretation) of the documentary sources. I aim to demonstrate
that the Lombard masters are merely a myth created for
historiography, a handy deus ex machina capable of resolving a
particular case in the complex problem of the inter-territorial
transmission of artistic knowledge in the mediaeval period3.
However, first I would like to stress the peculiar role
assigned to Lombardy as a reference for the origins of the
This article is part of the research project HUM2006-12475 of the Universitat

Autnoma de Barcelona. I would like to thank Manuel Castieiras for his aid and
continuous support. I am also in debt to Jordi Camps, who has made significant
observations on the contents of this paper, especially related to Italian sculpture; and
to Anna Orriols, who has carefully read the text and whose clever comments have
improved it in an ostensible way.
1 These
Lombard masters would be the heirs of the ancient magistri comacini

mentioned in some legislative sources from the Longobard kingdom (7th-8th
centuries); thats why they are often called simply (and not always properly)
comacini. See, for example: S. LOMARTIRE, Tra mito e realt: riflessioni
sullattivit dei magistri comacini nellItalia del nord tra XII e XIV secolo,
Magistri dEuropa. Eventi, relazioni, strutture della migrazione di artisti e
costruttori dai laghi lombardi, Como 1997, 139-154; and C. TOSCO, Gli
architetti e le maestranze, in Arti e Storia nel Medioevo, II, Del costruire:
tecniche, artisti, artigiani, committenti, E. Castelnuovo and G. Sergi, eds.,
Torino 2003, 50-55.
2 E. VERGNOLLE, Les dbuts de lart roman dans le royaume franc (ca. 980 ca.1020), Cahiers de Civilisation Mdivale, XLIII (2000), 161-181.
3 A first part of my research has already been published in J. DURAN-PORTA,
Lombardos en Catalua? Construccin y pervivencia de una hiptesis
controvertida, Anales de Historia del Arte, vol. extra (2009), 247-261; J.
DURAN-PORTA, Una reconsideraci sobre els orgens de larquitectura romnica
a Catalunya: el mite dels mestres llombards, Catalan Review, XXII (2008),
227-238.
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Arte Lombarda | JOAN DURAN-PORTA
Catalan Romanesque, and not just in terms of the architecture

but also for the mural painting4. The early painterly experiences
of the Catalan Romanesque, grouped around the anonymous
Master of Pedret, have also been deemed imported from
northern Italy by one or several workshops of Milanese painters
close to contemporary Lombard painting (Civate, Prugiasco)
and ultimately dependent on formulas and resources that
appear in around AD 1000 in the decoration of the apse of San
Vincenzo in Galliano (fig. 1)5. Manuel Castieiras has just
begun to survey the Lombard connection to the Catalan
painting linked to Pedret. Castieiras refutes the arrival of
painters from the region of Milan and clearly posits a directly
Roman influence, which would join a rich previous local
tradition unfortunately lost today6. So, the Lombard painters,
who have occasionally been included in the teams of itinerant
builders7, would never have existed either.
The Lombard question in Romanesque Catalonia

In the early 20th century, the publication and swift translation
into English of the emblematic book by Giovanni Teresio
Rivoira, Le origini dellarchitettura lombarda e delle sue principali
derivazioni nei paesi doltrAlpe, carved a permanent niche for
the perception of the Lombard origin of much of the European
Romanesque among the criticism. In this theoretical model,
drawing on a long-standing tradition, the northern Italian hub
acts as a generator of architectural formulas which later spread
across much of Europe, perhaps even as far as Normandy and
the British Isles8. (It is curious to see how this idea has been
rejected over time, and how historiography has ended up
regarding Lombard architecture, conversely, as a regional,
peripheral phenomenon, remote from the major creative
arteries of the mediaeval world9).
The first approach to this theoretical contrivance by Catalan
critics dates from 1907, when Puig i Cadafalch published Les
influences lombardes en Catalogne, the text of a lecture that
he had delivered one year earlier at the Congrs Archologique
100
Even if its true that this insistence in Lombard influences allowed first Catalan
scholars to detach Catalan romanesque from the Spanish world (which was
certainly convenient to their political interests), in fact the formulation of the
Catalan-Lombard question was never related to any national apriorism, but
connected to the dominant ideas on the origins of Romanesque architecture at the
time. See X. BARRAL, Puig i Cadafalch: le premier art roman entre idologie et
politique, Medioevo: arte lombarda, A. C. Quintavalle, ed., Milano 2004, 33-41.
5 Galliano is also often considered a model for 11th century Catalan
architecture. A recent analysis on the building: M. ROSSI, Il rinnovamento
architettonico della basilica di San Vincenzo e il battistero di San Giovanni Battista
a Galliano, in Ariberto da Intimiano. Fede, potere e cultura a Milano nel secolo XI,
Cinisello Balsamo 2007, 87-99.
6 See the contribution Manuel Castieiras publishes in this issue of Arte
Lombarda (Il Maestro di Pedret e la pittura lombarda: mito o realt?).
Previously: M. CASTIEIRAS, Mural painting, in M. CASTIEIRAS - J. CAMPS,
Romanesque art in the MNAC collections, Barcelona 2008, 56-66.
7 H. STOTHART, Studies relating to the influence of Lombard artists in Catalan
1. Galliano, San Vincenzo, exterior view.
de France10. In this text, Puig accepted the prevailing idea of the

Lombard origin of part of Romanesque architecture, and relates
it to Catalonia. He also accepted the presence of itinerant
builders originally from northern Italy as a vehicle for spreading
this model. It is symptomatic to see how Puig shows his
reluctance to assume that the Lombard schemes play an
exclusive or even dominant role in the formation of the Catalan
Romanesque, although he does readily admit to the vehicular
role of the itinerant builders. In any case, his caution
foreshadows the subsequent development of his theoretical
Spain during the 11th Century, in Il Romanico, Atti del Seminario di studi diretto
da Piero Sanpaolesi, Milano 1975, 212-224.
8 G. T. RIVOIRA, Le origini dellarchitettura lombarda e delle sue principali
derivazioni nei paesi doltrAlpe, Roma 1901-1907 (Lombardic Architecture: Its
Origin, Developement and Derivatives, London 1910). The expansion of
Lombard artists had been absolutely magnified in G. MERZARIO, I Maestri
Comacini. Storia artistica di mille duecento anni (600-1800), Milano 1893. For
a panoramic view on the European context of the Lombard question, see
DURAN-PORTA, 2009, 248-250.
9 Some views on this matter: A. C. QUINTAVALLE, Arte lombarda, medioevo e
idea di nazione. Dalla storia dellarte al romanzo, in Medioevo: arte lombarda,
2004, XI-XXVI. Focusing on strictly Lombard architecture, but not really willing
with the debate on the Lombard expansion, see the classic study by A. K.
PORTER, Lombard Architecture, New Haven - London 1915-1917.
10 J. PUIG I CADAFALCH, Les influences lombardes en Catalogne, in Congrs
Archologique de France. LXXIIIe Session tenue en 1906 Carcassonn et Perpignan,
Paris - Caen 1907, 684-703.
ideas, in which Lombardy becomes a transmitting hub more

than the creator of building formulas, whose origins the
Catalan author seeks somewhat overenthusiasticaly in the
architecture of the Middle East11.
The notion of these itinerant Lombard masters met with
immediate success, and was furthermore confirmed by the
surprising discovery that the very term lombard (or lambard)
appeared in Catalan mediaeval sources as a synonym for builder.
This was revealed by Josep Gudiol in the article Quelcom sobre
els Lambarts, published only three years later12. In this article,
he demonstrates the semantic evolution of the old demonym as
a term to describe the trade of builder. However, the fact is that
this circumstance only occurs (and Gudiol stresses this
cautiously) from the last third of the 12th century, and never in
any previous document. The first documented case is master
Raimon Lambards famous contract to complete the
construction of the cathedral of La Seu dUrgell, which I will
talk about more later in this article. This contract dates from
1175, so it is more than 150 years after the supposed migration
of Lombard masters in the beginnings of 11th century. The
remaining documents are from the 13th or even the 14th century.
If Puigs theses on the Lombards have an analytical
foundation grounded on the formal and decorative similarities
between Catalan and Lombard architecture, Gudiols
contribution strengthened the relations between both regions
with documents and it also served to solidify the idea of the
itinerant Lombard masters. To Gudiol, and to subsequent critics
for the 100 ensuing years, the use of the demonym Lombard
as a synonym for builder is the consequence of the success and
fame achieved by these ancient Lombard masters who arrived in
Catalonia just after AD 1000. The fact that more than 150 years
would elapse between their arrival and the earliest mentions of
them in the documentation does not ever seem to have surprised
anyone.
We shall revisit this issue in the second part of this article, as
first I would like to briefly examine the reception and evolution
of the theory of the Lombard masters in Catalonia. From the
start, the most hotly debated part of Puig i Cadafalchs theories
was the very concept of the First Romanesque, much less than
the matter of the itinerant Lombards, who were certainly a
collateral question in Puigs theory. First Romanesque was
accused of having been erected as an ideal model, assuming that
a series of technical elements or ornamental features served to
confect a unified stylistic scene. Pierre Francastel, in particular,
devotes an entire chapter of Lhumanisme roman to insightfully
dismembering Puigs theories: La carte du premier art roman
suggre donc une image entirement fausse de la realit parce
quelle ne nous rvle pas lexistence dun cercle de culture
homogne, mais seulement la presence, des poques diverses,
et dans quelques rgions artificiellement isoles, dun certain
nombre de caractres aussi artificiellement retenus comme
caractristiques lexclusion de tous les autres13.
The critique is pertinent, and modern historiography
cannot but share much of it, even though the real purpose of
Francastels discourse seems to be less to reflect on the First

Romanesque (whatever that happens to be) than to claim the
role of northern architecture (in other words French
architecture) in the formation of the true Romanesque after
AD 1070, namely the so-called High Romanesque. However,
we also have to acknowledge that despite this criticism, the idea
of the First Romanesque immediately took root everywhere,
even in French academia, to which Puig i Cadafalch really
belonged on account of his schooling and career14.
Over time, the concept has been properly nuanced, and
today it has resulted in two more or less opposite meanings.
Some of the critics follow Francastels arguments and deny the
unitary value of the architecture described by Puig, basing it
upon a strictly chronological view: the First Romanesque
understood as a simple premier ge roman, inclusive and
multiple, decharacterised15. This view enables us to more vividly
relate the Romanesque experiences of the northern and southern
regions of Europe, although it tends to group the different
experiences within a context we could call deterministic as the
point of departure for the future achievement of a complete,
unique and dominant style, that is, the High Romanesque16.
The second way to approach the issue is by recognising a
certain unity in all First Romanesque architecture, but limiting
this common element to the building technique, in particular to
the kind of masonry used. This includes the use of the petit
appareil and securing the outer walls with the popular system of
lesenes combined with corbeling blind arches (fig. 2)17. This
second interpretation, not too surprisingly, is dominant in
current Catalan historiography and is also the interpretation that
supports the hypothesis of the Lombards direct contribution to
11
The theory of First Romanesque first appears in J. PUIG I CADAFALCH, Le

premier art roman. Larchitecture en Catalogne et dans lOccident mditerranen
aux Xe et XIe sicles, Paris 1928. Later: J. PUIG I CADAFALCH, La geografia i els
orgens del primer art romnic Barcelona, 1930 (La gographie et les origines du
premier art roman, Paris 1935).
12 J. G UDIOL I C UNILL , Quelcom sobre els Lambarts, Revista de la
Asociacin artstico-arqueolgica barcelonesa, 62 (1910/II), 329-335.
However, it is interesting to highlight the lack of references to Lombard
masons in a previous article about Catalan romanesque builders: A. DE
FALGUERA, Els constructors de les obres romniques a Catalunya, Empori,
I (1907), 129-142.
13 P. FRANCASTEL, Lhumanisme roman. Critique des thories sur lart du XIe sicle
en France, Paris 1942 (reimp. Paris 1970), 47.
14 Henri Focillon was the main supporter of Puigs theories in France. See H.
FOCILLON, Art dOccident. Le Moyen ge roman et gothique, Paris 1938, 27-32.
15 The contributions of Marcel Durliat were especially outstanding: M.
DURLIAT, La Catalogne et le premier art roman, Bulletin Monumental, 147
(1989/III), 209-238; M. DURLIAT, Rflexions sur lart roman en France,
Cahiers de Civilisation Mdivale, XXXIX (1996), 41-65.
16 See, for example: E. VERGNOLLE, LArt Roman en France: architecture,
sculpture, peinture, Paris 1994. Nowadays, the attention to first Romanesque is
also present in France thanks to the international colloquium Le premier art
roman cent ans aprs. La construction entre Sane et P autour de lan mil. Etudes
comparatives, Baume-les-Messieurs - Saint-Claude, june 2009.
17 C. Edson Armi convincingly proves that the system had initially statics
purposes, so it was undisputably connected to the use of the petit appareil: C.
E. ARMI, The Corbel Table, Gesta, XXXIX (2000/2), 89-116.
101
2. Corbera de Llobregat (Barcelona), Sant Pon de Corbera, detail of masonry.
the Catalan Romanesque. That is, it enables us to regard the

builders who came from Lombardy as the introducers not of a
First Romanesque style but of what was actually a
Romanesque building method that replaced the traditional 10th
century construction procedures used in the Catalan counties18.
Nobody would deny that this new, revolutionary and highly
intelligent way of building reached Catalonia (and other
places) in the early 11th century, and that it quickly took the
place of the traditional technique characteristic of the preRomanesque19.
Did there have to have been itinerant Lombard masters for
this technique to have been introduced here? And, in any case,
is the existence of the Lombard masters documented in any
way? Why is the appearance of this same technique in southern
Burgundy, another architectural powerhouse in the early 11th
century, not related with the direct arrival of Italian builders,
who were also their neighbours?20
18 This
102
interpretation was generally accepted in the Simposi Internacional Els

comacini i larquitectura romnica a Catalunya, Barcelona - Girona, november
2005, especially in the nevertheless highly interesting contribution of J.-A.
ADELL, Laparici dels magistri comacini a Catalunya. Aspectes tecnolgics i
dorganitzaci. The acts of this symposium have not been published yet.
19 The traditional techniques related to the opus caementicium were in use for
a few more decades only in the counties of Empries and Rossell. These local
procedures, howevere, were also there applied to already Romanesque-designed
buildings, as in the emblematic case of Sant Pere de Rodes: I. LORS, Lglise
de Sant Pere de Rodes, un exemple de renaissance de larchitecture du XIe
sicle en Catalogne, Cahiers de Saint-Michel de Cuxa, XXXIII (2001), 21-39.
20 For the Burgundyan architecture based on first romanesque technical
procedures, see C. E. ARMI, Design and Construction in Romanesque Architecture.
First Romanesque Architecture and the Pointed Arch in Burgundy and Northern
Italy, Cambridge 2004.
21 The importance of Puig i Cadafalch in Catalan Romanesque historiography
is due, first of all, to the unquestionable value of his works and to their
international success. However, it is important to note that there was a huge gap
in Catalan art studies because of the Spanish Civil War and its consequences. It
is understandable that post-war scholars read the illustrous names of the prebellic past with great respect. Besides, the figure of Puig i Cadafalch was truely
In Catalonia, it is understandable that the Lombard hypothesis

is still widespread, especially because it has always been very
difficult to argue with the prominent figure of Puig i Cadafalch21.
Even today, in fact, it is common practice to qualify the countless
11th century constructions that use the petit appareil and the wall
lexis of blind arches and lesenes as Lombard architecture, both
popularly and in specialised publications22. I am interested in
highlighting two recent studies, one by Manuel Castieiras, and
the other by Gerardo Boto and Nazaret Gallego, because they
encompass two opposite ways of viewing the arrival of the
Lombard formulas and masons23. While Castieiras upholds the
traditional idea of linking them specifically to the architectural
promotion carried out by Abbot Oliba and other members of the
Catalan elite24, Boto and Gallego opt for a more gradual arrival and
posit that the first tests of the Lombard schemas were carried out
in the region of La Ribagora, northeast of what today is Aragon:
Therefore, the adoption of the construction system formulated by
the comacini [sic] masters in the northern Italian churches back in
the early 11 th century would lead to a gradual process of
familiarisation and investigation with the new foreign, avant-garde
resources, which achieved their first moment of splendour in the
monastic milieu of La Ribagora during the first quarter of the 11th
century, specifically at Santa Maria dObarra25.
In fact, that these new techniques (regardless of whether or
not they were brought here by the Lombards) should reach the
county of La Ribagora before the Catalan counties (which were
located further to the east, were better connected, had a more
powerful aristocracy and a much more solid architectural
tradition, were economically stronger) is difficult to believe ...
and actually only the early datation of the lovely church of
Obarra, which is thought to have been built in the time of
Abbot Galindo (1003-1025) though there is no documentary
evidence for this enables this conjecture to be plausible.
In my opinion, abolishing the link between the early 11th
century architecture in La Ribagora and its neighbouring
impressive on his own: he was not only a distinguished art historian, but also one
of the main European architects of the beginnings of 20th century. Moreoever, he
has also a significant political career, being the president of the Mancomunitat
(1917-1925), the institution of Catalan self-government previous to the restoration
of the Generalitat. For the polyhedral personality of Puig, see Puig i Cadafalch i la
Catalunya contempornia, A. Balcells, ed., Barcelona 2003.
22 See, among many others: J. A. ADELL, La renovaci arquitectnica del segle
XI, in Catalunya Romnica, XVII, Barcelona 1998, 72-83; F. FIT, Sobre els
mestres dobra i la construcci medieval a Catalunya (1a part: lpoca
romnica), Lartista-artes medieval a la Corona dArag. Actes, J. J. Yarza Luaces
and Francesc Fit i Llevot, eds., Lleida 1999, 211-238.
23 M. CASTIEIRAS, La cuestin lombarda en el primer romnico cataln, in Il
Medioevo delle Cattedrali. Chiesa e Impero: la lotta delle immagini (secoli XI e XII),
A. C. Quintavalle, ed., Milano 2006, 345-355 (351); G. BOTO - N. GALLEGO,
Canniques i llinatges comtals en la gestaci de la primera arquitectura romnica a
Catalunya, in Els comacini i larquitectura, in course of publication.
24 A panoramic view on Catalan patrons in Romanesque period: J. CAMPS - I.
LORS, Le patronage dans lart roman catalan, Les Cahiers de Saint-Michel de
Cuxa, XXXVI (2005), 209-223.
25 BOTO - GALLEGO, in course of publication. I thank the authors for letting
me read their study before it is published.
Catalan nuclei is counterintuitive, given the proximity and

historical and cultural relations between the regions. In contrast,
Aragonese author Fernando Galtier is a staunch defender of this
hypothesis, as well as the most prominent and zealous champion
of the theory of the Lombard masters in Spanish historiography
today 26. Galtier sustains that the Lombard masters indeed
brought the new Romanesque formulas to the Pyrenees, and he
has articulated a dense theory which encompasses not just
religious but also military architecture27.
The most surprising aspect of Galtiers theory is the negative
assessment that he ultimately levels at the work of the Lombards.
After regarding them as the introducers of so many novel
building techniques to Catalonia (and to La Ribagora), he also
describes them as having an extraordinary inability to resolve the
architectural problems posed to them by the local developers:
In the first half of the 11th century, the problems of Lombard
artistic creation, plus their inherent defects, flourished notably
when their masters accepted the construction a fundamentis of
new churches. It would seem that the main cause albeit not
the only one must be sought in the contradiction between the
expectations of the Catalan patrons, who were critical of the
coarse quality of the walls of their buildings yet proud of having
managed to cover the entire liturgical space with vaults, and the
expectations of the Lombard masters, experts in stonemasonry,
in working upwards on their scaffolding, but incapable of
covering any space with groined vaults. The result is a long list
of unfinished works28.
According to this interpretation, therefore, the arrival of the
Italian builders to Catalan lands should have resulted in failure due
to their inability to construct the large barrel vaults, which precisely
characterise much of Catalonias monumental architecture dating
from the early 11th century. The Catalan patrons, if this theory
holds, must have been rather foolish. In short, there is nothing that
could prove this hypothesis, and the long list of unfinished works
does not allow us to posit an early Lombard stage followed by a
second, non-Lombard phase in these buildings, but only proves the
existence of different phases in certain buildings, which is nothing
out of the ordinary in the Middle Ages.
The use of the same construction and lexis resources is the

first argument that enables us to associate Catalan and
Lombard architecture. The superficial similarities (in terms of
wall-building technique) are obvious, and cannot be denied.
In fact, it was precisely that technical similarity that led Puig i
Cadafalch to delimit the concept of early Romanesque, with
its extensive geographical scope. Neither is there any need to
stress the similarity of certain formal solutions (the bell
towers, the model of hall crypt) which 11th century Catalan
and Lombard (and other) buildings shared, as has been stated
on many occasions 29. These parallels are apparent enough,
and no one would fail to acknowledge them despite the fact
that today it is widely believed that the 11th century models
of Catalan architecture were notably more diverse, starting
with the structures from Germanic architecture, with which,
of course, the northern Italian world with its imperial ties was
also related30.
Having said this, the distance between early 11th century
Catalan buildings and their presumed Lombard models should
also be borne in mind. This distance is perfectly normal when
talking about two lands in contact with each other, but it does
seem strange if one wants to posit that the constructions in
both places were built by the same Italian builders. In this
sense, the difference in the conception of the interior church
spaces, where the prevailing preference for the barrel vault in
Catalonia provided a vertical coherence which was totally
lacking in the Lombard constructions, has always seemed
paradigmatic to me (and is rarely stressed). The comparison
between Sant Vicen de Cardona (fig. 3), one of the supposed
archetypes of Catalan First Romanesque, and its purported
model in San Paragorio di Noli (fig. 4), display these very
different ways of structuring a building vertically. The former
seeks absolute unity, an organic model (which C. E. Armi
eloquently characterises as a continuous order31), while the
latter respects the Roman basilica tradition of the flat ceiling
26 This author has published many papers about the lombard question. See,
for example: F. GALTIER, Scemate Longobardino: una experiencia primicial en
Catalua y Aragn (circa 995 - circa 1040), in Patrimonio artstico de Galicia y
otros estudios. Homenaje al prof. dr. Serafn Moralejo varez, Santiago de
Compostela 2004, III, 97-105.
27 Galtier (like others) points the presence of Lombard masons in the first
constructive campaign at the emblematic castle of Loarre, which he dates in the
times of king Sancho III (ca. 1004-1035). This early datation was convincingly
refuted by Philippe Araguas (P. ARAGUAS, Mozarabes et lombards: les chateaux du
premier art roman en Aragon et Catalogne, in Actas del I Congreso de Castellologia
Ibrica, Palencia 1998, 15-32), and recently the thesis of Roberto Viruete agrees
on a datation under the reign of Ramiro I (1035-1063/69): R. VIRUETE, Aragn
en la poca de Ramiro I, tesis doctoral, Universidad de Zaragoza, 2008. Both
authors also deny Galtiers theory (and his antroponymical analysis) that Loarre
and other aragonese castles (like Fantova) were buit by Italian masons.
28 GALTIER, 2004, 100.
29 On the diffusion of the hall-crypt in Catalonia: J. DURAN-PORTA, Les
cryptes monumentales dans la Catalogne dOliba. De Sant Pere de Rodes la

diffusion du modle de crypte salle, Les Cahiers de Saint-Michel de Cuxa, XL
(2009), 325-339.
30 Contacts between Catalonia and the imperial architecture (and Burgundy)
were already underlined years ago by I. BANGO, La part oriental dels temples de
labat-bisbe Oliba, Quaderns dEstudis Medievals, 23-24 (1988), 51-66. Recently:
G. BOTO, Monasterios catalanes en el siglo XI. Los espacios eclesisticos de Oliba, in
Monasteria et territoria. Elites, edilicia y territorio en el Mediterrneo medieval (siglos
V-XV), J. Lpez Quiroga and A. M. Martnez Tejera, eds., Madrid 2007, 281319. On the relation betwen Lombard and German architecture: A. SEGAGNI
MALACART, Incidenze transalpine nellarchitettura padana della prima met del
secolo XI, Hortus Artium Medievalium, 3 (1997), 141-147.
31 C. E. ARMI, Orders and Continuous Orders in Romanesque Architecture,
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 34 (1975/III), 173-188. Armis
suggestive theoretical operation is not so far from considering the first
romanesque as a truly style or at least as a constructive style. In a sense, it
recovers Puig i Cadafalch spirit.
Documentary evidence
on the (supposed) Lombard migration
103
3. Cardona, Sant Vicen.
and the horizontal conception of the prominent lines in the

architectural space32.
In fact, what most clearly discredits an overly closed
comparison between Lombard and Catalan buildings is the
variability of the solutions used in Catalonia, which would be
difficult to grasp if we simplistically attributed them to Italian
workshops. This diversity has been widely acknowledged, and it
contradicts the univocal vision of 11th century Catalan architecture
derived from Puig i Cadafalchs theses. The building solutions are
structurally and aesthetically diverse, and they also reflect the
different functional or liturgical needs of each institution, or simply
32 I know this comparison between Cardona and Noli is truly a topos of the Catalan
104
Romanesque studies: F. GALTIER, Lglise ligurienne San Paragorio de Noli et ses

rapports avec Santa Mara de Obarra (Aragon) et San Vicente de Cardona
(Catalogne), Les Cahiers de Saint-Michel de Cuxa, XIX (1988), 151-157; E. FERNIE
Saint-Vincent de Cardona et la dimension mditerranenne du premier art
roman, Cahiers de Civilisation Mdivale, XLIII (2000), 243-256. In my opinion,
in spite of the use of some similar resources, the complex and meditated design of
Cardona (which includes, certainly, a change in the original project) can not derive
from a so much simpler and more modest church as San Paragorio. See also I.
BANGO, San Vicente de Cardona. Prototipo cannico del primer romnico,
the personal or political wills of their patrons. The great basilicalike structure in Santa Maria de Ripoll surmounted by the
enormous transept seems to fall within a conceptual model
imported from the Saint Peters in Rome33, while, for example, in
the cathedral of Vic, which was also sponsored by Bishop-Abbot
Oliba, the solution of a single nave, transept and single apse falls
within a very different notion, probably shared with the (also
vanished) cathedrals of Barcelona and Girona34. In the cathedral of
Girona, the proven use of the petit appareil (theoretically brought
over by the Lombards) together with large, well-carved ashlars in
certain parts of the walls, reveals well-experimented construction
Homenatge a mossn Jess Tarragona. Miscellnia, Lleida 1996, 89-105.

The relation with the Vatican seems undeniable to me, event though
Northern parallels to Ripoll are often underlined: BOTO, 2007, 295-296.
34 On the single nave: M. SUREDA, Els precedents de la catedral de Santa Maria
de Girona. De la plaa religiosa del frum rom al conjunt arquitectnic de la seu
romnica (ss. I aC - XIV dC), tesis doctoral, Universitat de Girona, 2009, I,
326-336. The author stresses the monumental and symbolic value of the single
nave plans, and links the Catalan examples to the Languedoc, which is a
reasonable connection, after all, since Catalan cathedrals were then dependent
of the metropolitan church of Narbonne.
33
4. Noli, San Paragorio.
which may well be parallel to some of the coeval experiences in the

Ottonid or Burgundian world35.
Apart from the Italian and northern influences, it is impossible
to ignore the local architectural tradition, from which the
widespread interest in stone vaults, especially for the paradigmatic
barrel vault, might have come. Interest in vaults is not exclusive
to Catalonia, but it did appear here particularly early and
prominently 36. In any event, it is clear that the foreign
contributions did not rely on the arrival of workshops from any
given European country, and similarly I believe that we must
35 SUREDA,
2009, 461. However, the author shares the clich of the Lombard
masons as introducers of the new techniques. Significantly, nobody claims the
Lombard presence in Burgundy: J. HENRIET, Saint-Philibert de Tournus.
Loeuvre du second matre: la galile et la nef, Bulletin Monumental, 150
(1992/II), 108-111.
36 It seems very appealing to consider the adoption of stone vaulting in
Romanesque buildings as a result of aesthetics and representative aims of the
patrons, as pointed in B. BRENK, Originalit e innovazione nellarte medievale,
in Arti e storia nel Medioevo, I, Tempi, spazi e istituzioni, E. Castelnuovo e G.
Sergi, eds., Torino 2003, 32-53. On the first experiences in stone vaulting in
Burgundy: C. SAPIN, La pierre et le votement, innovation dans les techniques de
construction des glises en Bourgogne au XIe sicle, in Linnovation technique au
examine the issue of building technique. The massive movement

of foreign craftsmen is not a necessary condition for the arrival of
new technicals or forms; it is enough for the technical knowledge
and the skills needed to arrive in order to put them into practice.
It must be borne in mind that this apparently Lombardian
technique largely thrived because it did not require specialists in
stereotomy (or specialists in anything, in fact); in other words, it
did not require masons trained in the most delicate of
stonecutting tasks, namely the precise carving of stone ashlars for
them to fit into the different places in the structures being built.
Another key to its success is also, of course, that it enabled all
kinds of local building materials to be used, something that speeds
the construction process up and even more importantly makes
it vastly cheaper. Obviously, this does not mean that there is no
knowledge behind the technique, which indeed there is.
Furthermore, this knowledge is in no way humble or inherent to
a limited, unsuccessful art form, as some historiography so often
claims. On the contrary, the organic organisation of the buildings,
the articulate resolution of the wall systems, the lucidity of the
volumetric interplays and the modular combinations of the spatial
frameworks are not only characteristic of a solid, learned tradition
but also provide us with many clues to understanding the
subsequent evolution of Romanesque architecture, despite the fact
that the use of large carved ashlars then became widespread.
However, the transmission of all this knowledge does not
seem to require a mass movement of builders in any way. It is
not necessary to link the circulation of technical knowledge with
the travelling of craftsmen, it is enough for the knowledge to
move. And the usual repositories of this knowledge in 11th
century were still the religious intellectuals. In that sense, the
role of the Benedictine monastic networks must have been
particularly important, as they nurtured cultural (and political)
climates that were favourable to exchanges37. Another issue is
where they came from and where this technical tradition
emerged from, and bearing in mind that the Roman substrate
ultimately survived the architectural processes of the entire
Middle Ages, the traditional idea linking it to the experiences of
Italian brick architecture (however, not necessarily Lombard but
Italian in general) would make sense. Nevertheless, the
geographic scope of the Roman and Late Roman monumental
landscape should be borne in mind, as it would advocate a much
more flexible interpretation of the phenomenon38.
Moyen Age, P. Beck, ed., Paris 1998, 179-185.

37 An example of the transmission of architectonic knowledge by benedictine
monks in A. AZKARATE - L. SNCHEZ, Aportaciones al conocimiento de las
tcnicas constructivas altomedievales en lava, Guipzcoa y Vizcaya,
Arqueologa de la arquitectura, 4 (2005), 208-209.
38 In this sense: J. P. CAILLET, Larchitecture religieuse dans lOccident de lAn mil:
rupture ou continuit?, in Anne mille. An Mil, C. Carozzi and H. Taviani
Carozzi, eds., Aix-en-Provence 2002, 71-104. The author denies, for example,
the north-Italian origin of the wall surface decoration: il faudrait alors envisager
une mergence simultane de ce type de dcor en Italie du Nord, en Catalogne,
en Bourgogne, sans doute aussi en Croatie, et peut-tre meme encore dans
lEmpire (p. 85).
105
106
With regard to the issue of the artists itinerancy,

historiographys insistence on this issue has been thoroughly
excessive for many years, linked, I imagine, to the modern
success of the roads of pilgrimage, as well as to the rise of a
highly globalised perception of the Romanesque world, perhaps
as a reaction to the closed, ruralist vision of the olden days.
Xavier Barral has insisted on this recently, dampening the
enthusiasm and advocating a more local vision of the
Romanesque. From this vantage point, it is important to bear in
mind the legacy of previous artistic models, which are manifestly
shared by extensive areas of Europe. That does not mean that
artists did not circulate; however, the exception (which, precisely
because it was exceptional, was so emphatically documented)
should not be made into the rule, the conserved documentation
should not be overinterpreted39.
The circulation of models, technical treatises or artistic ideas
generically around different geographic regions cannot be
disputed either40. However, this circulation should be attributed
not to the movement of artists but rather to the movement of
intellectuals, almost always clergymen, who were much more used
to travelling long distances and moving to places far from their
home country, and who had the economic resources to do so
comfortably. I would like to stress that I do not deny, obviously,
that artists circulated; I only claim that these movements must be
circumscribed to rather exceptional cases, which only cease to be
exceptional as the Late Middle Ages dawned. In around AD 1000,
on the other hand, these cases were indeed occasional, and only
the mass migration of Lombard masters which is what I am
trying to refute would be evidence to the contrary41.
First of all, it should be remembered that not a single
Lombard master has been documented, despite everything that
has been said to the contrary. Under no circumstances can the
documents and information conserved be interpreted in this way,
and if there are some (a few) stonecutters documented in the 11th
century, they unquestionably seem to be local builders42.
There is no direct mention of a single Lombard master. In

contrast, the arrival of northern Italian builders to the Catalan
counties has been confirmed by a very particular circumstance:
the extensive presence in the documentary records of the term
lombard used as an anthroponym. Indeed, Lombard, initially
the Latin version of the word Longobardus, and later used in the
form derived from Romance, was part of the anthroponymic
stock in the Catalan-speaking lands long before the 9th century,
as has been amply studied43. It was initially used as a single
name, before the anthroponymic revolution that swept through
Europe starting in the mid-11th century44. From the late 11th
century, it remained in use almost exclusively as a patronymic
complementary designation (cognomen or surname).
The frequency of the name leads one to initially believe that it
came from a (peculiar) process of migration of northern Italians
to Catalan lands, in that the anthroponymic use of a term which
is obviously rooted in a demonym enables us to identify everyone
with that name as a foreigner45. Doubt has been cast on this idea
for years now, and it is logically accepted that the former
demonym simply came to be one of the names commonly used
in the High Middle Ages in Catalonia46. What we cannot know is
whether the conversion of the term lombard (or longobardus)
into an anthroponym was due to a migration of Italians to the
recently conquered by the Carolingian troops Catalonia (or
maybe there were Italians in the invading troops themselves), or
whether the anthroponym had already passed into the
Carolingian anthroponymic stock after they had also previously
conquered the Longobardic dominions in the Italian peninsula.
Catalan philologist Esperana Piquer favours the first option
in an article published in Rivista Italiana di Onomastica in 2007,
devoted exclusively to the name Longobardus and its evolution
in the different European regions where Romance languages
were spoken47. However, this 9th century Lombard migration
would have been a single event, and as this author herself claims
(thus, in agreement with the doubts expressed above), the
39
lenqute: de la Picardie au Portugal, lapparition du systme anthroponymique

deux lements et ses nuances rgionales, in Gense mdivale de lanthroponymie
moderne, M. Bourin and P. Chareille, eds., Tours 1990, I, 233-246. For
Catalan context: M. Z IMMERMAN , Les dbuts de la rvolution
antroponymique en Catalogne (Xe-XIIe siecles), Annales du Midi, CII
(1990), 289-308; L. TO I FIGUERAS, Antroponimia de los condados catalanes
(Barcelona, Girona y Osona, siglos X-XII), in Antroponimia y sociedad. Sistemas
de identificacin hispano-cristianos en los siglos IX a XIII, P. Martnez Sopena,
ed., Valladolid 1995, 371-394.
45 This interpretation (and some documented examples), appeared already in
the first great work published on Catalan Romanesque: J. PUIG I CADAFALCH A. DE FALGUERA - J. GODALL, Larquitectura romnica a Catalunya, Barcelona
1909-1918, II, 16-22 and 76-78.
46 M. ZIMMERMAN, La connaissance du grec en Catalogne du IXe au XIe sicle, in
Haut Moyen-Age. Culture, ducation et socit. tudes offertes Pierre Rich,
Nanterre 1990, 496-515. Besides, the author affirms: lusage consistant
nommer un individu par sa rsidence ou son pays dorigine napparait quau
XIIe scle, une fois enracine lanthroponymie dux lements (p. 497).
47 E. PIQUER, La designacin tnica langobardus en la antroponimia medieval
europea: de identidad colectiva a identificacin individual, Rivista Italiana di
Onomastica, XIII (2007/I), 91-136.
X. BARRAL, Contre litinrance des artistes du premier art roman mridional, in

Le vie del medioevo, A. C. Quintavalle, ed., Milano 2000, 138-140; X. BARRAL,
Contre lart roman? Essai sur un pass reinvent, Paris 2006, 259-265 (Un art
local, et non itinrant); X. BARRAL, Lart romnic catal a debat, Barcelona
2009, 132-133. See also R. RECHT, La circulation de artistes, des oeuvres, des
modles dans lEurope mdivale, Revue de lArt, 120 (1998/1), 5-10.
40 Two architectonic motifs are drawn, for example, in the remains of a book
of models from the abbey of Saint-Benot-sur-Loire: E. VERGNOLLE, Un
carnet de modeles de lan mil originaire de Saint-Bnot-sur-Loire, Arte
Medievale, 2 (1985), 23-56.
41 Various examples in E. CASTELNUOVO, Viaggiavano gli artisti nei lunghi secoli
del Medioevo? E perch, e come, e quando?, in Els camins, el viatge, els artistes.
Cicle de conferncies del MNAC, Barcelona 2007, 33-45.
42 This is the case of the well-known master Fedantius, who signed as
architectus et magister edorum in a purchase-sale contract from the abbey of
Sant Cugat del Valls. Published in Cartulario de Sant Cugat del Valls, J. Rius
i Serra, ed., Barcelona 1945-1947, II, doc. 428 (the same Fedantius appears in
docs. 407 and 448).
43 For 9th and 10th Centuries: J. BOLS - J. MORAN, Repertori dAntropnims
Catalans, Barcelona 1994, 42-43.
44 On the evolution of european anthroponymy: M. B OURIN , Bilan de
ethnonim, now in the category of anthroponym, swiftly joined

the list of Catalan given names, as demonstrated by its vast
anthroponymic vitality throughout the 9th and 10th centuries48.
I have conducted an in-depth analysis of practically all of the
early mediaeval Catalan documents published in which people
with the name Longobardus or any of its variants appear. There
are more than 200 mentions of this name, counting the fact that
sometimes the same person appears in several chronologically
consecutive documents49. Confirming the opinion of Piquer and
other experts, none of these documents enables us to identify the
people called Longobardus as northern Italian immigrants or as
descendants of Italian families, and where there is some
revelatory information to this effect, it always claims that the
individual in question is of local provenance. It is also important
to state for the record that in no case, not one, can these
individuals be identified as builders or architects.
With the anthroponymic revolution of the 11 th to 12 th
centuries, many of the old given names became complementary,
patronymic names. In this context, the old term Longobardus
disappeared almost entirely as a given name, yet it reappeared as
a surname. Despite the fact that some of these patronymics are
still documented in their Latin forms (Longobardus), most of
them appear in their Catalanised form: Lombard, Lambard,
Llombard, Languard, etc. However, it is clear that this
Lombard is only the Romance version of the former
Longobardus, not a different anthroponym50.
Despite the evidence in this direction, traditional art
historiography has deemed that the appearance of the
complementary name Lombard in 11 th century Catalan
anthroponymy revealed the presence of real Lombards, of
individuals who came directly from northern Italy, and more
exactly the celebrated Romanesque builders. This interpretation
is highly convenient for justifying the presence of Lombard
masters in the Catalan counties. It joins the other two
traditional arguments in favour of this presence: the
architectural similarities and the semantic evolution of the very
term Lombard until it became synonymous with builder

(about which more later).
Based on anthroponymic studies, Esperana Piquer herself
uses this art historians tradition to justify a second migratory wave
of Italians to Catalonia in the 11 th century. Instead of
interpreting that there was a natural evolution in the old given
names in the form of patronymics, the occasional appearance of
people with the surname Lombard in Catalonia after AD 1000
was put down to a second Italian migration for which there is
not a shred of testimony anywhere and which, furthermore, was
felicitously made up of builders51. I do not understand this. If
we art historians use arguments from the science of
anthroponymy, we should at least ensure that these arguments
do not derive in turn from our old theories about art history
itself in an effort to avoid entering into an absurd spiral of
circular hypotheses that prove each other52.
In fact, just as with the sources from earlier centuries,
throughout the entire 11th century and much of the 12th there is
not a trace of northern Italians in the Catalan documentation
that we are aware of, or to be more accurate, there is not a trace
of northern Italian builders53. No individuals have been traced
with the given name or patronymic complement of any form of
the term Lombard, either the Latin or more especially the
Romance versions of it, who can be demonstrated to come from
northern Italy, or who worked in the construction trade. Not
even the Pere Lambard located in the village of ger at the time
when the collegiate church of Sant Pere was being built, who has
been identified as the master builder of this church, can be
demonstrated to be Italian or even an architect. Although
naturally the documents do not explicitly tell us that these people
were not Lombard masters, based on their interpretation and
context we can conclude that they were neither54.
This analysis is extremely relevant because it debunks the
documentary argument in favour of the Lombard presence, and
because furthermore it can be placed parallel to other classical
hypotheses of the documented presence of Lombards elsewhere
48
53
PIQUER, 2007, 99.

Some of the most relevant examples are detailed in DURAN-PORTA, 2008,
257-258.
50 Anthroponyms variability (latin-romance) is quite usual, even when referring
to the same person as in the case of a Guifredus Longuardus mentioned in
1025, then named Guifred Languard in 1033 (Cartulario de Sant Cugat,
1945-1947, II, docs. 496 and 527).
51 Piquer apparently believes that these builders were not truly Lombards,
but members of group of population from the Tuscan region of Grosseto
called lombardi because of their Lombard ancestors. She also states that
current Catalan scholars consider First Romanesque as imported in
Catalonia by Tuscan builders, basing her opinion on a text of Joan-Albert
Adell that, actually, only suggests a certain use of some typically Tuscans
constructive elements in a pair of churches of the diocese of Girona (ADELL,
1998, 79-82).
52 To make things worse, a cautious statement by the illustrious historian Pierre
Bonnassie regarding this second Lombard migration (based, precisely, on artistic
and antroponymic reasons) has also been used to feed back the itinerant builders
hypothesis. See P. BONNASSIE, La Catalogne du milieu du Xe sicle la fin du XIe
sicle, Croissance et mutation dune socit, Toulouse 1975-1976, I, 336.
49
There are indeed some Lombards exceptionnally mentioned in Catalan

sources; none of them is a builder. In the cathedral of Vic, for example, there
is a grammarian named Guibertus who is mentioned in the cathedral obituary
as Loddicensis civitatis oriundi (I owe this information to Anna Orriols). This
Guibertus may have come with the Bishop-Abbot Oliba, who is known for
having travelled to Lodi, from where he took several relics to Catalonia. See M.
S. GROS, Els textos densenyament en lescola catedralcia de Vic al segle XI, in
Symposium Internacional sobre els orgens de Catalunya (Segles VIII-XI), Barcelona
1992, II, 23. Another interesting example is that of the a turinese judge (Wazo
iudice longobardus taurinensis) reported in 1071 as a witness of an agreement
between San Michele della Chiusa and a Catalan noble for the possession of
some lands next to the priory of Santa Maria de Cervi own by the piedmontese
abbey. The document is published in L. TO I FIGUERAS, El monestir de Santa
Maria de Cervi i la pagesia: una anlisi local del canvi feudal: diplomatari dels
segles X-XII, Barcelona 1991, doc. 23.
54 We only know that this Pere Lambard from ger had a property next to the
lands of the magnate Arnau Mir de Tost (FIT, 1999, 225). Besides, there are
three more individuals mentioned in 11th century sources named after the same
patronymic: Joan Lambard (1031), Esteve Lambard (1067) and Berenguer
Lambard (1089). See DURAN-PORTA, 2008, 258.
107
108
around Europe, where Italian builders have been more specifically

and occasionally identified, and where this observation has also
been quite successfully refuted.
For example, it was traditionally assumed that William of
Volpiano had taken Piedmontese builders with him to SaintBenigne in Dijon; they are credited with the purported
Italianism of the design. There is no documentary foundation
for this idea, because neither the Vita Sancti Guillelmi
Divionensis Abbatis written by Rodulfus Glaber nor the
(subsequent) anonymous Chronica Sancti Benigni Venerandorum
Abbatum ever refer to the geographical origin of the church
builders. However, the (purportedly) Italian root of the building
must indeed be attributed to Williams intellectual supervision
of the construction55.
The reference to Lombard labour is much more explicit in
the abbey of Montecassino, because when discussing the
construction of the Desiderian basilica Leone Marsicanos
Chronica Cassinensis explicitly claims that craftsmen tam
Amalfitanis quam et Lambardis participated in it56. It has been
amply demonstrated that the phrase is not part of the original
text, but is one of the insertions made by the continuer and
reviser of the chronicle, Peter the Deacon. Therefore, the
presence of Lombard masters in central Italy during the 11th
century cannot concluded from this document and similarly
seems to have nothing to do with the now-vanished Desiderian
building that belied the presence of northern Italian models57.
Outside of Catalonia, there are no further documents that
mention 11th century builders of Lombard descent so explicitly.
Only the celebrated reference in the Abbey of Rolducs Annals,
in Dutch Limburg, written in the second half of the 12th century
(or perhaps in the mid-13th century), might lead us to assume
some kind of Italian participation in the construction of the
abbey church, because it is said to have been built according to
a scemate longobardino. The concept seems to refer to a
certain structure in the body of naves; however, though the
origin of the format may have been Italian, as the texts claim, its
spread through the German Empire in no way proves the
specific presence of Italian builders. In any case, we could not

claim that they were the same First Romanesque Lombard
masters because the church in Rolduc (and other Dutch
buildings that follow similar forms) dates from the 12 th
century58.
Based on everything that has been said until now, the
conclusion is that there is no documentary evidence of the
famous Lombard masters in either Catalonia or any other
European region (apart from Italy itself, obviously). Therefore,
nothing would support the old idea of a migration of Lombard
builders, and the issue could be put to rest forever were it not
for the most powerful of the arguments in favour of that
hypothesis, which I mentioned at the beginning: the semantic
evolution of the term Lombard in Catalonia, which ultimately
became synonymous for builder.
55
DONOFRIO, Artifices lambardi nella Campania medievale, in Medioevo: arte

lombarda, 2004, 526-535.
58 P. ROLLAND, Scemate Longobardino. Basse Meuse - Bas Rhin, Les Cahiers
Techniques de lArt, 3 (1954-1956), 21-42: Par systme lombard, nous
entendons donc essentiellement celui qui paule une grande trave carre de
nef par deux petites traves carres de collateraux moindres de moiti, la
premire tant couverte dune vote dartes simples ou renforces de bandes
rectangulaires, et les dernires tant normalment votes dartes (p. 34). On
the diffusion of this model, see also J. M. TIMMERS, Influssi lombardi sulle chiese
di Maastricht e di Rolduc, in Il Romanico. Atti del Seminario, 1995, 249-261;
and J. RASPI SERRA, Lapicidi lombardi ed emiliani del XII secolo a Maastricht
in Olanda, Commentari, 21 (1970), 27-43.
59 A detailed commentary about this master in J. DURAN-PORTA, Sobre lorigen
de Raimon lambard, obrer de la catedral dUrgell, Locus Amoenus, 8 (2005-2006),
19-28. The contract has been published in many occasions, first in J. VILLANUEVA,
Viaje literario a las iglesias de Espaa, Madrid 1803-1852, IX, 298-300.
60 CASTELNUOVO, 2007, 43. See also M. DURLIAT, Les chantiers de construction
des glises romanes, Les Cahiers de Saint-Michel de Cuxa, XXVI (1995), 20.
The assumption of Lombard masons working at Dijon probably became

popular after Merzarios studies (MERZARIO, 1893, I, 93-94), as we can see for
example in Conant: William of Volpiano brought craftsmen from his native
Lombardy, and it is believed that they worked on his abbey chruch in Dijon
(K. J. CONANT, Carolingian and Romanesque Architecture 800 to 1200,
Middlesex 1959, 58). However, in the Chronica Sancti Benigni Venerandorum
Abbatum we can only read that William of Volpiano arrived in Dijon with
diversorum operum magisterio docti, surely an allusion to intellectual
monks, not to lay builders (ed. MIGNE, Patrologia Latina, 162, col. 819A). See
also C. TOSCO, Architetti e committenti nel romanico lombardo, Roma 1997,
102-103.
56 LEONIS MARSICANI Chronica Monasterii Casinensis, H. Hoffman, ed.,
Monumenta Germania Historica. Scriptores, XXXIV, Hannover 1980, III, 26.
57 On Peter the Deacon interpolation: LEONE MARSICANO, Cronaca di
Montecassino, F. Aceto - V. Lucherini, eds., Milano 2002, 31-33. The abbey
church of Montecassino was undoubtely inspired by Roman basilican models,
while its connection to the plan of the Milanese SantAmbrogio seems less
significant to me. However, this has been occasionally remarked, as in M.
Lambard as a synonym of builder in late medieval

Catalan sources
As I said above, this use of the term Lambard as a synonym of
mason or master builder is a piece of irrefutable documentary
evidence. Therefore, let us state from the outset that it is not a
name that spread very much; rather its presence was limited to
at least ten conserved documents which do encompass a notably
extensive period of time, precisely between 1175 and 1381.
The most celebrated of the cases, and the one that has been the
focal point of the most attention in not only Catalonia but also
Italy, is naturally the case of Raimon, or Ramon, Lambard, the
master builder hired in 1175 to complete the last phase of the
cathedral of La Seu dUrgell59. With regarded to the muchdebated issue of his geographical provenance, it should be
stated that back in the old article by Josep Gudiol, Raimons
Italian origins were denied, although it is true that many
opinions have been voiced in favour of this provenance, even
recently 60. However, the latest documentary contributions
from the Chapterhouse Archive of Urgell have resolved the
5. La Seu dUrgell, cathedral of Santa Maria.
question, I believe forever. This is because in another

document conserved from 1187, the same Raymond appears
signing with the name Raimon de Narg lambard, in which
apparently de Narg is naturally the surname with a
patrimonial or geographic origin (Narg, today Coll de Narg,
a town near La Seu dUrgell), while the quality of lambard
refers, in fact, to his profession61. The presence of a powerful
canon in the Chapterhouse of La Seu dUrgell, documented as
Petrus de Nargo capellani or Petrus de Nargo prepositus,
confirms not just the usual triple name system (given name +
surname + profession/position) but also the fact that the
unique hiring of Raimon, who acted as both a cathedral
operarius and the master builder, was quite likely due to the
fact that a relative of his, the aforementioned Pere, was one of
the canons at La Seu62.
The issue at La Seu dUrgell is that the cathedral building
unequivocally displays contact with the northern Italian world
of architecture, as we shall analyse in further detail below. This
contact, however, cannot be attributed to the work of master
builder Raimon, who was quite explicitly hired to finish the
cathedral: claudas nobis ecclesiam totam et leves coclearia sive
campanilia unum filum super omnes voltas et facias ipsum
cugul. Since it is unlikely that Raimon had worked earlier as a
master builder, the unequivocal Lombard influences that the
cathedral displays seem to have been the result of the work of a
previous architect.
Before proceeding further in this direction, let us briefly
examine the other documents in which Catalan builders are
called lambards. Gudiol published four of the references in the
article that I cite here repeatedly: an anonymous lambard who
acted as an appraiser in an arbitration related to the value of the
reform work that had to be done on houses in Barcelona owned
by the Bishop of Vic (1202); a certain Guillem de Rieria

lambard is documented in the city of Vic in 1232; a
homonymous father and son are documented in Vic as well
between 1273 and 1324, identified as Pere de Mora
lambard63. A fifth, similar mention, this time reported by
Francesc Carreras Candi, is regarding a certain Guillem de
Verdaguer lambart who hired an apprentice, also in Vic, to
learn the trade64. Later on, in the 14th century, there is mention
of the participation of a team of lombards in the construction
on the new Gothic cathedral in Barcelona under the orders of
master Jaume Fabre. The last mention of lombards might be the
most significant of all, because it is included in the founding
privilege of the confraria (brotherhood) of the building
professionals in Barcelona, that is, the lambarts o maestres de
cases de la ciutat de Barchinona65. The privilege is an official
61
Pere Beseran argues that the term Lombard has to be understood more as
a surname than as a professional epithet, or at least including both possibilities
together; see P. BESERAN, Originalitat i tradici en lescultura monumental de
la catedral de la Seu dUrgell, Lambard. Estudis dart medieval, IX (1996), 4973 (especially 54-55). In my opinion, since de Narg is a well-established
family name, there is no reason to consider lambard as a surname. The absence
of the family name in Raimons contract must be simply related to the practices
of the Chapter chanons, whose members often signed only with their first name
followed by their position/occupation in the Chapter; this also could explain,
by the way, the reiteration of the apellative lambard in the contractual text.
62 This conclusion is based on the analysis of the Chapter documents; see
DURAN-PORTA, 2005-2006.
63 GUDIOL, 1910, 330-332.
64 F. CARRERAS CANDI, Notes dotzecentistes dAusona, Boletn de la Real
Academia de Buenas Letras de Barcelona, V(1909-1910), 262.
65 M. DE BOFARULL Y DE SARTORIO, Gremios y Cofradas de la antigua Corona
de Aragn Barcelona 1876, 235-241, Coleccin de documentos inditos del Archivo
General de la Corona de Aragn, tomo XL.
109
evolution is the prime question we must ask ourselves. Answering

this question should enable us to permanently close my
downward reinterpretation of the Lombard phenomenon in
Catalonia without leaving any loose ends.
The 12th century cathedral of La Seu dUrgell:

the Italian argument
6. La Seu dUrgell, Sant Pere (today Sant Miquel).
110
document granted in 1381 by King Peter III the Ceremonious,

and it unequivocally proves the continuity of the use of the term
lambard as a synonym of builder until the late 14th century. After
that, however, the name does not reappear any further in the
documentation of which we are aware.
These, then, are all of the documented mentions of
Lambards. It should be borne in mind that in a series of other
cases, much more frequently, the word Lambard serves as a
simple personal surname, without any trace of Italian origins for
the individuals so named66. What we see, then, is that the term
Lombard/Lambard appears in documents either as a simple
anthroponymic complement or as a professional name. In this
latter case, it should be noted that the word usually accompanies
a previous surname (Raimon de Nargo, lambard), despite the
fact that obvious it does not always (Raimon, lambard).
The question posed here is the reason why a term like lambard
is used for builders starting in the last quarter of the 12th century and
for 200 more years, and why this happened exclusively in
Catalonia, and furthermore in a single region within the country,
because all mentions of it come from the dioceses of Urgell, Osona
and Barcelona. If the origin of this semantic transformation should
be removed, as I suggest, from links to an influx of northern Italian
builders which never happened, where we can find the origin of this
The cathedral of Santa Maria in La Seu dUrgell (fig. 5), lies at

the core of the interpretation that I suggest, and the indisputable
Italianism of some of its architectonic elements, as we shall see,
will lead us to a suitable solution to the problem. We have just
seen Raimon de Narg, the lambard, taking charge of the last
phase in the construction of this church. He served as the
supervisor of the architecture, but also, as becomes clear in his
contract, as the operarius or financial supervisor of the opera, the
chapterhouse institution charged (among many other affairs)
with all the remodelling and building projects.
As is known, the position of operarius was one of the most
important ones within the chapterhouse hierarchy, as it
controlled much of the communitys income. Two people always
held this position in tandem for a seven-year period, just as
Raimon shared the job 67 . This explains the length of the
contract, which does not derive from a painstaking examination
of the cathedrals construction needs, nor, in fact, does it have
anything to do with the building work at all. This was simply
the period during which a person could serve as operarius. What
Raimon is hired for in the contract, therefore, is nothing other
than the conclusion of the cathedral within the period in which
he served as cathedral operarius, during which he fully assumed
the hierarchical category and consideration of a canon, without
being one (he was a layman). The construction was to be
completed within the timeframe, because Raimons successors as
operarius were, again, simple canons.
It has always been assumed, and it is indeed a plausible
assumption, that the peculiar hiring of Raimon, exceptional in
its terms, came after a period in which work on the cathedral
had been halted. In fact, the process of building the cathedral of
La Seu is far from being well known, despite the documentation
that refers to it throughout the middle years of the 12th century.
The large building was designed to replace the old cathedral, a
temple built in the first half of the 11 th century under the
patronage of the Bishop Ermengol (1010-1035), which may
66 I have already mentioned the few cases in 11th century. In the 12th century
Lombard is a common surname in Catalonia and in other European countries,
as pointed by PIQUER, 2007, 118-120.
67 Two other operari named Guillem and Bernat are mentioned consecutively,
between 1117 and 1182, in the documents from the Chapter Archive of Urgell;
they shared their position with Raimon: C. BARAUT, Els documents, dels anys
1151-1190, de lArxiu Capitular de la Seu dUrgell, Urgellia, X (1990-1991),
7-349 (docs. 1733, 1740). On this question, see also VIDAL-VILASECA, El
romnic de Biscarb, Ramon Lambard i altres beneficiaris laics del cibus
canonicale, Barcelona 1998, 118-119.
7. La Seu dUrgell, cathedral of Santa Maria, plan.
8. La Seu dUrgell, cathedral of Santa Maria, chevet.
well have made use of the body of naves from a prior, preRomanesque building68. The 11th century cathedral was part of
a group of a large Episcopal group, of which one of the churches
still remains. This was originally devoted to Saint Peter and built
in accordance with the technical developments associated with
the First Romanesque (fig. 6), which must have also been
applied to the cathedral itself69.
The temple of Saint Ermengol threatened ruin in the early
th
12 century, and another active and very famous bishop of Urgell,
Bishop Ot, or Otto (1095-1122), embarked on the project of
erecting a replacement cathedral, now following the technological
criteria of the High Romanesque. That is: replacing the petit
appareil with powerful, carved ashlars, in this case using local
granite-based material in greyish ochre tones. Bishop Ot must
have had the support of the Counts of Urgell, which by then had
moved the capital of the county further south to Balaguer, leaving
La Seu dUrgell solely as the hub of Episcopal power.
The refurbishment enterprise must have begun during the
later years of Ots bishopric, as reported in a fascinating document
conserved, a kind of letter to the faithful or decree of indulgences
which, though it bears no date, is believed to have been written in
around 1116. This letter mentions the poor condition of the old
cathedral (pene fracta videbatur), and the bishop asks the faithful
for contributions to defray the cost of building a new church in
exchange for dispensations and the pardoning of sins70. The
plentiful ad opera donations in the ensuing years confirm that the
bishops petition was satisfactorily received.
In any event, these ad opera donations did not ensure that the
construction on the new church would begin during Ots
lifetime71. Perhaps the start of construction was delayed. What
seems to be undeniable is that the lengthy construction process was
conducted while the old cathedral was still operating, as was
common in Middle Ages. An analysis of the existing structures
reveals that the work began on the southern wing of the transept
and on the apse, while the faade was built at a later date and
independently72.
We are unaware of the degree of continuity between the
building campaigns, although bequests to the cathedral
construction abound starting in 1130. On the other hand, the
documentation reveals that for much of the 12 th century,
economic activity in the cathedral was particularly intense, a
natural development in a period of notable economic vigour for
the chapterhouse. In fact, the political and economic actions of
the bishopric at that time were quite ambitious, almost
aggressive, in defence of the ecclesiastic primacy over the
interests of the neighbouring feudal nobility, with which it
disputed control of the northern lands of the county of Urgell.
68
Bishop Ermengol was one of the main personalities of the time in Catalan
counties. He was famous as a builder, and he was sanctified shortly after his
death (apparently after falling down from a bridge he was constructing). See
M. DELCOR, Ermengol, vque dUrgell et son oeuvre (1010-1035), de
lHistorie lHagiographie, Les Cahiers de Saint-Michel de Cuxa, XX (1989),
161-190; and C. BARAUT, Les fonts documentals i hagiogrfiques medievals
de la vida i miracles de sant Ermengol, bisbe dUrgell (1010-1035), Urgellia,
14 (1998-2000), 137-165.
69 Since the 14th century the church of Sant Pere is devoted to saint Michael;
it is leant to the Southern gallery of the 12th Century cloister. On the episcopal
group of churches see E. CARRERO, La Seu dUrgell, el ltimo conjunto de
iglesias, Anuario de Estudios Medievales, in course of publication. I am in debt
to the author for letting me read his study before published; it was really useful
to arrange a speech about La Seu dUrgell I gave in the university course
Catedrales romnicas hispans I, in Jaca on July 2009.
70 Edition of the letter in C. BARAUT, Els documents, dels anys 1101-1150,
de lArxiu Capitular de la Seu dUrgell, Urgellia, IX (1988-1989), doc. 1345.
71 These legacies do seem directly related to the constructive campaigns,
although this kind of donations ad opera are known not to be always linked to
architectonic works. See R. BRANNER, Fabrica, opus and the dating of medieval
monuments, Gesta, 15 (1976/1-2), 27-30.
72 On this process: J. A. ADELL et al., La catedral de la Seu dUrgell, Manresa
2000, 67-68.
111
9. La Seu dUrgell, cathedral of Santa Maria, relieve and corbels in northern wall.
112
The tension between the religious and secular factions gradually

rose and ultimately led to veritable open warfare that lasted many
years, between the end of the 12th and the first half of the 13th
centuries. Plus, the issue of the Cathar heresy was mixed in, with
whom the main lords of the land had (at least) good relations73.
It is possible that involvement in the earliest serious clashes
with the nobility might have been behind a halt in construction
on the cathedral in 1150-1160, even though work was already
quite advanced. The documents do not enable us to confirm this
impression; however, the peculiarities of Raimon Lambards
subsequent contract in 1175 point in this direction: the urgency
to finish the construction, the financial responsibilities assigned
to the master builder. In fact, the work commissioned to Raimon
centred on the upper part of the building and was necessary to
ensure the defensive solidity of the cathedral in the event of a
foreseeable attack on the city by the nobility, which was
increasingly active in its efforts against the Churchs interests74.
Regardless, the fact is that Raimon Lambard can in no way
be the initial author of the design of the new cathedral in La
Seu, nor can he be the master builder in charge of the bulk of its
construction. Nor do we actually know whether construction
was continued during all the middle years of the 12th century, or
whether it was conducted in fits and starts. Calculating between
1120 and 1160, there are 40 years of work, a reasonable period
for a structure the size of the Urgell cathedral and a normal
timeframe for the period we are examining. Likewise, we do not
know how many heads of construction there were (from the
architectural standpoint) prior to Raimon Lambard.
In any event, the Urgell cathedral is quite probably the most
important and monumental building constructed ex novo in
Catalonia during the entire 12th century. It may not boast the
most innovative design, nor does it have the most outstanding
ornamentation, but it is clear that due to its size and
monumental ambition it is the most sweeping project within the
High Romanesque in Catalonia. The ambition of Bishop Ot
and his successors is indisputable, and in no way can we see the
Urgell cathedral as a discreet, forgettable building; rather, it is
the polar opposite. Nor should we forget that at that time the
county of Urgell was the second most important and politically

powerful county in Catalonia, even though it trailed far behind
the county of Barcelona. Until the conquest of Lleida (1148),
precisely by troops from Urgell and Barcelona, the Urgell
bishopric was the largest and most powerful one in inland
Catalonia, and the one with the most contact with the
dominions of the Kingdom of Aragon, which had been under the
orbit of Barcelonas Count Ramon Berenguer IV since the late
1130s. Therefore, it is logical that the remodelling of an ancient
cathedral and the execution of an imposing, majestic building (a
new symbol of the Churchs power in perfect harmony with the
Reform airs coming from Rome), is fitting in this context.
The pre-eminence of the new cathedral in Urgell within the
framework of Catalan High Romanesque should not come as a
surprise if we examine the evolution of construction in Catalonia.
As has been so often repeated, the fact is that the majority of large
religious buildings had been erected during the 11th century
building frenzy, as had the majority of cathedrals and large
monasteries. To clarify, with the imposition of the formulas of the
High Romanesque starting in the third quarter of the 11 th
century, there were few prominent institutions that did not have
a first-rate, relatively new building. For this reason, with a handful
of exceptions (Sant Joan de les Abadesses, Sant Pere in Besal,
Sant Pere de Galligans in Girona), the most noteworthy 12th
century structures in Catalonia are refurbishments of pre-existing
buildings, often aimed at providing sculptural decoration to
churches that did not have any (or did not have enough) because
of their structural characteristics. The large portals (Ripoll, Sant
Pere de Rodes, Vic) and monumental cloisters (Cuix, Ripoll,
Girona, Sant Cugat) are a testimony to the interests of the day.
Once the counts embarked on conquering the outlying territories
to the south, which had been Andalusian until then, the backbone
of the new territories (the Catalunya Nova) and the need to
create a new monumental network of religious buildings would
revive the Catalan architectural drive with new forms that can
now be regarded as characteristic of the Late Romanesque.
In La Seu dUrgell, the building enterprise did not actually
entail a renewal of the countrys architectural vernacular. The
design of the cathedral was in no way innovative; quite the
contrary, it fit in perfectly with the forms established during the
influential 11th century, with the natural evolution brought
about by time (fig. 7). However, it did feature the extraordinary
addition of two elements that were utterly foreign to the Catalan
tradition.
73 C. GASCN, Crisis social, espiritualidad y hereja en la dicesis de Urgel (siglos
XII-XIII). Los orgenes y la difusin de la hereja ctara en la antigua dicesis de

Urgel, Espacio, Tiempo y Forma. Serie III. Historia medieval, 16 (2003) 73-106.
74 Indeed, the city was assaulted in 1196. The nobles army laid siege to the
cathedral, and when the canons finally gave up, all the furniture and ornamenta
were completely spoiled by the assaultants. Since the nobles were commonly
accused of connivance with the cathar heresy, all these events are reported
with a certain truculence by the cronicler Pierre de Vaux de Cernay; see PETRI
DE VALLIUM CERNAII Historia Albigensium, cap. XLVI, in MIGNE, Patrologia
Latina, 213, coll. 543-711.
10. La Seu dUrgell, cathedral of Santa Maria, apse gallery.
11. Pavia, San Michele, apse gallery.
The cathedral is a three-naved church, the central one

covered with a barrel vault articulated with transverse arches,
and narrower adjacent naves whose bays were surmounted by
groined vaults. The roof was held up on thick cruciform pillars
with angular semi-columns and curious, rounded pearl drop-like
decorations on the groins. The transept is extremely
commanding, covered with a barrel vault at the ends and a dome
at the croise with quadrangular lines and an octagonal cupola
above it. The chevet is particularly interesting, with a deep
central apse that culminates in a semicircular niche with no
outer protrusion and four small apsidioles that open directly
onto the transept. Just like the niche in the apse, these apsidioles
are embedded in the thick eastern wall (fig. 8). The outer
appearance of the building is harshly orthogonal, which may be
explained by its defensive needs. Two towers surmount either
end of the transept, although they were only raised superficially
(this was one of the things Raimon Lambard was charged with),
as the entire vertical design was never fully completed.
The decorative stonework is quite notable, although it does
not go so far as to depart from the austerity that is so
characteristic of Catalan Romanesque architecture. Capitals
with plant motifs crown the semi-columns of the inner pillars,
as well as the internal articulation of the main apse with the wall
arranged into a succession of small, blind arcades (a common
system in the local tradition). There are also two small reliefs and
a few corbels on the upper part of the central nave, holding up
cornice over which the central barrel vault is placed (fig. 9).
All of this can be explained within the standardised cannons
of the world of Catalan construction during the Romanesque,
which was deeply rooted in the formulations developed early in
the 11th century, and perhaps even with a certain interest in
maintaining some of the features of the former cathedral of
Saint Ermengol, such as the towers 75. Nothing makes the
buildings overall structure stand out from the local tradition,
meaning that there is a real possibility that its first architect, or
the author of its design, was a builder well versed in the Catalan
models, which would then suggest that he was a local.
However, as mentioned above, this structure does show two

elements which are foreign to local building habits and which,
in contrast, are intensely recognised within the Italian tradition.
These two elements are the gallery running through the central
apse and upper floor of the transept, and the extremely imposing
western faade76.
With regard to the gallery open to the apse (a columned
gallery open to the outside through arcades; fig. 10), this is a very
common solution in 12th century northern Italian architecture:
cathedrals of Modena and Bergamo, San Michele di Pavia (fig.
11), San Michele della Chiusa... and it also appears in German
architecture, which shares a similar architectural background
(Speyer, Mainz). In La Seu dUrgell, the apse gallery continues
along the eastern wall of the transept but replaces the opening to
the outside with a closed corridor (fig. 12). This corridor is only
connected to the outside through simple windows, while it leads
to the inside of the cathedral through a kind of triforium (fig. 13).
The solution is quite original and has no parallels in Catalonia.
In my opinion, this element must not have been part of the
original design of the chevet of the church. It is true that there
is a very close relationship between the upper and lower parts of
the chevet, and the consistency of the eastern wall (which houses
the small embedded apsidioles on the lower part, and the
corridor with the triforium on the upper) does not betray any
change in design. However, there are several elements that point
to the contrary, such as the somewhat inorganic appearance of
the triforium compared to the cathedrals other internal walls,
which are smooth, and the difference between the elaborate
windows on the upper part of the eastern end and the simpler
ones on the lower part. A shift seen on the external wall of the
75 See Th. W. LYMAN Les tours de Saint-Michel de Cuxa, Les Cahiers de Saint-
Michel de Cuxa, XI (1980), 276.

Obviously, the historiography has always recognised these two Italian
elements: J. PUIG I CADAFALCH, Santa Maria de la Seu dUrgell, Barcelona 1918,
67-71. In fact, this has even determined an excessively Italian perception of the
whole building, as pointed by ADELL et al., 2000, 71-73.
76
113
12. La Seu dUrgell, cathedral of Santa Maria, plan at stage.
13. La Seu dUrgell, cathedral of Santa Maria, triforium.
14. La Seu dUrgell, cathedral of Santa Maria, shift in wall on the apse.
central apse, just below the windows (fig. 14), seems even more
significant to me, as it may precisely reveal a time of change in
construction phase and thus a redesign. As is logical, I
acknowledge that this shift does not necessarily mean that
construction was halted, nor does a halt in the construction
necessarily imply that the design was changed77.
The second feature in the cathedral of Urgell that comes from
outside the Catalan architectural tradition is the faade (fig. 15).
It echoes the tripartite structure of the naves, with three entrance
portals and the surface articulated by two large overhangs in the
guise of enormous pilasters. The current arrangement of the
staggered roofs is the outcome of a restoration from the early 20th
century directed by Puig i Cadafalch, and even though it seems
fairly faithful there might also have been a single pitched roof, a
possibility mentioned by Puig78. However, it is clear that both the
shape of the faade and its rich decoration follow an Italian model.
The faades in San Michele of Pavia, or further south in San
Nicola of Bari, are always cited as parallels, and they do indeed
display similar solutions. The presence of sculpture, and not just
on the portals (which, in fact, are discreet here), is also
characteristic of Italy, as well as the planned layout of the porticoes
(which were ultimately never built), which might be comparable
to the particular solution of the typical protiro in the great northItalian cathedrals79.
The presence of the apse gallery and the Italianised faade in a
building so deeply rooted in the Catalan traditional taste suggests
77
114
15. La Seu dUrgell, cathedral of Santa Maria, faade.
You can even see a subtle difference in the size of the ashlars on the lower
part of the shift, which are larger, and in the upper part, which seem to be
slightly smaller. The shift does not come from any work in the modern
restauration of the cathedral (although there is a modern concrete support, as
in other places of the wall), because it appears in ancient photos from the
beginnings of 20th century. However, I have to admit that only this shift cannot
prove a change in the construction project.
78 PUIG I CADAFALCH, 1918, 68, 71. On the other hand, the addition of a
structure over the Northern collateral is aimed to reinforcing the supports of
the central naves barrel vault. Puig i Cadafalch thought this structure had been
added in the same 12th century (pp. 62, 69), but nowadays it is considered a
later addition from 16th or 17th century: ADELL et al., 2000, 84-85.
79 Maybe three porches (three protiri) were foreseen, a solution we can find,
for example, in the cathedral of Piacenza. On the lombard protiri: F.
GANDOLFO, La faade romane et ses rapports avec le protiro, latrium et le
quadriportico, Cahiers de Civilisation Mdivale, XXXIV (1991/3-4), 309-319.
16. La Seu dUrgell, cathedral of Santa Maria, cloister, capital 7.
some kind of foreign intervention in the construction of the

cathedral, an intervention which would reformulate some parts of
the original design in an extremely intelligent way. It seems
reasonable to link these two unique elements, which lack in either
precedents or parallels in Catalonia (and in its neighbouring lands,
Occitan or Spanish), to the contribution of an Italian master
builder or workshop. In the case of the faade, the fact that it was
begun independently from the main body of naves and then
connected via the lateral walls reinforces this impression even
further. The presence of a certain desire for chromatic
combination in some areas, where rows of reddish ashlars alternate
with the ochre of the usual granite rock, may also verge on Italian
taste80. It is meaningful that the presence of colour is limited to
the western faade (but, rarely, only in its northern side). The
panel of wall where the red rows suddenly end is clearly visible;
the body of naves (built from east to west, as is usual) and the
faade built independently would have been joined there81.
There is a final aspect of relation with the Italian world that I
would like to stress: the sculpture in the cathedral. Generally
speaking, scholars tend to link it with sculpture from Toulouse,
although it also acknowledges contributions from Roussillon
tradition and more occasional features that connect it with
northern Italy82. This preferently Tolosan interpretation revolves
primarily around the sculpture in the cloister, where 51 original
capitals remain, although it also takes account of the buildings
sculpture located on the portals, on various parts of the western
faade, in the apse gallery and in some elements of the interior.
I have no intention to refute the connections with Toulouse
and Roussillon, although I do think that the first one has been
slightly overstate. However, I wish to underscore the elements
with Italian origins, which tend to be undervalued in the
analyses, perhaps because they are mainly found in the less
visible sculptures. Despite this, the cloister is the home to one
17. San Michele della Chiusa, capital at the Zodiac portal.
of the sculptural elements most directly related to Italy, as Pere

Beseran has convincingly studied, namely one of the capitals on
the southern gallery, usually classified as number 7 (fig. 16). On
the corners, this capital shows four nude human figures with
their backs to the viewers, their heads in profile, wearing long
hair that ends in a middle plait; the men have their arms raised
and are holding a strange, knotted implement in their hands
which is difficult to interpret. Beseran relates the image with one
of the interior capitals in San Zeno of Verona, which has been
attributed to Niccol, where similar figures jut out, well-secured,
from a capital with vegetal motifs. To my mind, perhaps the
closest reference is another capital by Niccol (also cited by
Beseran) placed on the Zodiac portal in the abbey of San
Michele della Chiusa (fig. 17), which seems to predate the
Veronese works by this celebrated sculptor83.
80 Howevere, ther is also a notable tradition of coloured faades in languedocian
architecture: A. BONNERY, Matriaux et couleurs dans les glises romanes du

Languedoc, Les Cahiers de Saint-Michel de Cuxa, XXVI (1995), 109-123.
81 As pointed in ADELL et al., 2000, 86.
82 See article cited in note 61, and also P. BESERAN, Lescultura de Santa Maria
de la Seu dUrgell, in Catalunya Romnica, VI, Barcelona 1992, 334-350; s.a.
[P. BESERAN], Lescultura de la catedral dUrgell, in La catedral de la Seu dUrgell,
Manresa 2000, 108-129. On a more emphatic Tolosan influence (even related
to the building itself ): F. ESPAOL, Lescultura romnica catalana en el marc dels
intercanvis hispanollenguadocians, in Gombau de Camporrells, bisbe de Lleida a
lalba del segle XIII, I. G. Bango and J. Busqueta, eds., Lleida 1996, 43-81 (esp.
49-51).
83 In the capital of the Sacra San Michele there is no foliage, and the human
figures holds their owns plaits, a motifs that seems misunderstood in the work
of La Seu dUrgell. Whatever it was the closer model, I follow here the clever
arguments of Pere Beseran, who even mentions another version of the same
capital in SantEufemia in Piacenza (BESERAN, 1996, 64-65). For Niccol and
the sculpture related to his formulas, see Nicholaus e larte del suo tempo, A. M.
ROMANINI, ed., Ferrara 1985. Also: C. VERZR BORNSTEIN, Portals and Politics
in the early Italian city states: The sculptures of Nicholaus in context, Parma 1998.
115
18. La Seu dUrgell, cathedral of Santa Maria, central portal.
19. La Seu dUrgell, cathedral of Santa Maria, cornice, sirens.
The Italian capital in La Seu dUrgell falls within the

context of cloister galleries, where the Toulouse influence has
always been regarded as the most important. Perhaps now is the
time to mention that contacts have been traditionally posited
between Niccol and Toulouse sculpture, and in any case some
other capitals also use motifs from Italy, such as the eagles on
capital designated number 12 (and also on number 50 with
snakes), not too distinct from the ones on another capital in the
Zodiac portal of the Sacra San Michele84.
However, setting the cloister aside, above I mentioned the
layout of the sculptural details along the entire surface of the
western faade as a formula foreign to local customs and
84
116
For sure, the eagles motif is very generic, and obviously not unknown in
Roussillonnaise sculpture. However, its presence at San Michele della Chiusa
is really interesting. The traditional relations between the Piedmontese abbey
and Catalonia (where it had at least to priories none in the Urgell county)
emphasizes the significance of this building and its many resemblances to the
cathedral of Urgell (apse gallery, sculpture). For the initial period of these
relations see C. LAURANSON-ROSAZ, De la Chiusa Cuix, la Romania de lan
Mil sous le signe de larchange Michel et de saint Pierre, Cahiers de SaintMichel de Cuxa, XXXII (2001), 89-101.
85 Where they had a purely ideographical function. For an old lombard
interpretation of the motifs in Ripoll: J. AMORS, Los leones de la puerta de
Santa Maria de Ripoll, El Vell i El Nou, 2 poch, II, XVII (1921), 143-152.
86 For the capital in the Sacra San Michele: Nicholaus, 1985, III, 98-99. For
typically Italian. Lion figures flanking the central portal (fig. 18)
are a recurring theme in Italy, where this kind of figure generally
serves as the foundation for the porticoes. They are absent in
Catalonia, with the peculiar exception of the portal in Ripoll85.
There are two other pairs of lions, one pair on the imposts of
the portal sculpted in half-body, and the other pair full-body
sculptures located in the upper peaks. The latter are not unheard
of in Catalonia (Besal, Covet, Sureda), but they nonetheless
evoke the sculptural decoration of the faades of northern Italy.
The cornice that crowns the main entrance to La Seu is even
more interesting. It is not exactly a decorative frieze, rather a
small cornice held up by an entire series of tiny corbels which
visually act as a continuous frieze. Pere Beseran has accurately
compared this element with similar cornices in the Italian
cathedrals of Foligno and more especially in Assisi, although they
are not immediate referents. In La Seu dUrgell, the decoration is
primarily based on animals and fantastical beings, even though
there are several human figures among the 16 themes portrayed,
all of them different. The possibility has occasionally been set
forth of interpreting this decorative effort as an incomplete
zodiac, a subject that would once again point us towards the
Italian world. This interpretation is not easy to accept, and I
would lean more towards seeing only motifs from the ornamental
repertoire there, albeit unquestionably elaborate ones. In any
event, these small images may also generically evoke the
ornamental repertoires of the sculpture from Niccols milieu,
perhaps even with slightly more direct references such as the twotailed mermaids (fig. 19), which repeat a model once again found
on a capital in San Michele della Chiusa, or on another one in
SantEufemia of Piacenza86. The human and animal masks on the
corbels in the upper part of the faade show the same artistic style
and the same taste for ornamental lushness, and there, once
again, you can discern a distant trace of northern Italy in the faces
with open eyes, chubby cheeks and deep mouths, or in the
monstrous, rounded appearance of the animal depictions87.
I would not want to overstate these contacts with the sculpture
of Niccol and his milieu, which are rather occasional and limited
almost always to elements from the repertoire. More than the style
of sculpture, what draws us closer to northern Italy is the
architectures use of sculptural motifs88. In any case, it should also
be said that the Italian influence on the sculpture of the Catalan
the one in Piacenza: C. VERZR BORNSTEIN, The Capitals of the Porch of

SantEufemia in Piacenza: Interacting Schools of Romanesque Sculpture in
Northern Italy, Gesta, 13 (1974/1), 18. A panoramic view on the medieval
sirens: J. LECLERCQ-MARX, La sirne dans la pense et dans lart de lAntiquit et
du Moyen ge: du mythe paen au symbole chrtien, Bruxelles 1997.
87 See again BESERAN, 1996, 66.
88 However, settings as that in La Seu dUrgell advocate for a more flexible
understading of 12th century Southern Europe sculpture, much more open to
consider the intensity of cultural relations among all the Mediterranean
countries. This Mediterranean koin was certainly at the origin of the great
exhibition organized in 2007 in the Museu Nacional dArt de Catalunya. Its
catalogue: El Romnic i la Mediterrnia, Barcelona, Toulouse i Pisa, 1120-1180,
M. Castieiras and J. Camps, eds., Barcelona 2008.
20. Covet, Santa Maria.
widely recognised to have sojourned in north-central Italy91. Italian

influences have always been found, too, in what should be regarded
as the chief current in 12th century Catalan sculpture linked to the
output of the workshops from Vic-Ripoll. On the inner reveals of
the famous portal in Ripoll, for example, the composition of certain
elements from the calendar is once again powerfully reminiscent of
Niccols works in San Zeno of Verona92.
At a later date, towards the end of the 12th century, a certain
output associated with the criteria of the style 1200 can also be
linked to the Italian arts, such as the output from some of the
workshops involved in the cathedral of Lleida, or, without
venturing too far afield, the group of works related to master
Ramon de Bianya and his followers, who also actively worked
on the cathedral of Lleida and other places around the
Catalunya Nova, as well as in Roussillon. His styles connection
with the resources used among the milieu of Guglielmo and
Biduino has been proven for many years93.
If we return to La Seu dUrgell, the indications of Italian
resources in the use of the sculpture should naturally be related to
the architectural work, and here is where the hypothesis of a
northern Italian master builder seems to make sense. Perhaps, as
was thought in the past, this master builder should be attributed
with the cathedral construction from the very start as well as the
layout of its design, in which, however, indisputable homage to
the local tradition would have been paid. However, the
aforementioned possibility that the foreign master arrived when
the building had already started and took charge solely of
redesigning (and monumentalising) the previous plan seems more
apt to me. I doubt that this master builder and his posited
workshop were involved very directly in the sculpture of the
cathedral, whose craftsmen might have already begun work at the
time of his arrival. However, he must have had something to do
with it, perhaps by contributing new iconographic models or
89 Lands owned by Catalan counts were at the border with north-western Italy,
21. Cornell de Conflent, Santa Maria.
counties during the 12th century (and not only in the area of
Urgell) should not be regarded as an unknown, even though
historiography has paid less attention to it than to other regions.
The habitual Catalan-Italian relations in politics and trade,
initiated before AD 1000 but intense during the 12th century,
provide a favourable context for these artistic contacts89.
In a still unpublished article, Jordi Camps surveys this entire set
of Italian influences on Catalan sculptural practice, perhaps more
important than has traditionally been assumed, in order to pinpoint
its origin90. Influences, nuances or contacts with Italy are found, for
example, in the output linked to the Master of Cabestany, a
controversial figure who is assumed to be from northern Catalonia
(or maybe from Toulouse, as pointed by some other authors) and is
since in 1131 Ramon Berenguer III of Barcelona married the countess Dola
of Provence. Moreoever, the county of Forcalquier (in the High Provence) was
ruled by an urgellian dinasty during 12th century: J. MIRET Y SANS, La casa
condal de Urgell en Provenza, Boletn de la Real Academia de Buenas Letras de
Barcelona, II (1903-1904), 32-50.
90 J. CAMPS Lescultura arquitectnica del romnic a Catalunya. Els seus vincles amb
Itlia, in Els comacini i larquitectura romnica a Catalunya, in course of publication.
91 On the Master of Cabestany, recently: A. MILONE, El mestre de Cabestany,
notes per un replantejament, in El Romnic i la Mediterrnia, 2008, 181-191.
See also Le Matre de Cabestany, La Pierre-Qui-Vire 2000.
92 I do believe the Italian background in Ripoll sculpture should be more
stressed, although it has been often well considered: X. BARRAL, La sculpture
a Ripoll au XIIe sicle, Bulletin Monumental, 131 (1973), 311-359. On the
calendar: M. CASTIEIRAS, El calendario medieval hispano, Valladolid 1996 (esp.
p. 82). Castieiras, nevertheless, proposes a classic - Mediterranean origin for
the iconography of the Ripoll's calendar, less related then to the Italian
repertoire of the 12th century.
93 M. DURLIAT, Raymond de Bianya o R. de Via, Les Cahiers de Saint-Michel
de Cuxa, IV (1973), 128-138. For Italian sources of Tarragona sculpture, see J.
CAMPS, Il chiostro della cattedrale di Tarragona. Un esempio della internazionalit
e delleclettismo della scultura del XIII secolo nella Catalogna, in Medioevo: arte e
storia, A. C. Quintavalle, ed., Parma 2007, 303-315.
117
22. Espira-de-lAgly, Sainte-Marie.
perhaps by agreeing to make at least some pieces. Who knows? In

any event, the assessment of his exquisite work should solely cover
the purely architectural part, underscoring the neatness with
which the new contributions integrated into the original design.
Furthermore, there is no doubt that he successfully performed
his job and that the model left at La Seu has had natural
repercussions on other works in the same diocese. To wit, the
articulated formalisation of the western faade is somehow
reflected in the faades of Santa Maria de Gerri and Santa Maria
de Covet (fig. 20), although not as well rendered, while the
powerful appearance of the chevet has a clear parallel (minus the
apse gallery, however) in the canonical church of Santa Maria in
Cornell de Conflent, an 11th century church that was extensively
refurbished in the second half of the 12th century (fig. 21).
There is more distance between the cathedral of La Seu and a
building in Roussillon that has often been connected to this
northern Italian architecture as well: Santa Maria dEspira dAgl
(fig. 22). This late work, perhaps begun in the last quarter of the
12th century, is an extraordinarily complex building which shows
quite distinct phases of construction, and a curious end result in two
naves that only seem like a sketch of the project that was originally
planned. There are similar solutions to the ones used in La Seu
dUrgell, such as the two apses without any outside projection and
the small walkway raised over the chevet, here with no external
repercussions and most likely for purely defensive purposes94.
On the other hand, the architect of Espira-de-lAgly showed
himself to be singularly attentive to the chromatic interplay of
the walls, alternating rows of bluish grey material on a base of
very light, almost white ashlars. Bearing in mind the high,
compact appearance of the church, the result is visually
attractive and powerfully reminiscent of similar ornamental
strategies found in Italian architecture. Sometimes it has been
cited as a parallel with the Lombard church of Santa Maria del
Tiglio in Gravedona, on the banks of Lake Como (fig. 23)95,
although similar wall designs can be found in many other cases,
such as in Veronas San Zeno or generically in Tuscany (Lucca).
The relationships can only be superficial, plus it should be borne
in mind that there is a certain tradition of these same chromatic
interplays in the architecture of Roussillon96.
The existence of a certain Italianising current in the northern
94 On the other hand, the urgelitan Bishop Bernat de Castell arrived in Espir
118
23. Gravedona, Santa Maria del Tiglio.
dAgl in 1199 as a refugee, after being sacked by the Pope because his weak
defense from the assault to the cathedral (see n. 74). The construction of the
new church at Agl must have already been started before the arrival of the
bishop, but his presence reveals a previous connection between Agl and La Seu.
See P. PONSICH - G. MALLET, Santa Maria dEspir de lAgl, in Catalunya
Romnica, XIV, Barcelona 1993, 217-229.
95 There are more resemblances with Gravedona. In the Lombard church there
is also an elevated corridor surrounding the inner walls as a loggia, and the
collateral apses are also embedded in the wall. On Gravedona, see M. BELLONI
ZECCHINELLI, Le origini della romanica Santa Maria del Tiglio di Gravedona,
in Il Romanico. Atti del Seminario, 1975, 341-369.
96 G. MALLET, Jeux et rles de la couleur dans larchitecture romane
roussillonnaise, Les Cahiers de Saint-Michel de Cuxa, XXVI (1995),125-131.
region of the Catalan counties with the epicentre in the

cathedral of La Seu dUrgell reveals a host of foreign influences
in the architecture of the High Romanesque, to which very little
attention is usually paid. However, it furthermore provides the
key to understanding the reasons behind the semantic
transformation of the word Lambard into the equivalent of
builder, which is actually the origin of this entire lengthy
excursus which I have just completed.
The Catalan lambards: a new interpretation

Above I wondered how the use of the old demonym lambard
in Catalonia could be justified as a synonym of builder, once
doubt had been cast on the old hypothesis of the itinerant
Lombard masters in the early 11th century. I suggest seeking the
answer in La Seu dUrgell and in the hypothesis of a workshop
of northern Italians (so, Lombards), supervising a significant
campaign to construct the cathedral. It is these Lombards,
instead of the builders who purportedly arrived en masse to
Catalonia in around AD 1000, from which the habit of calling
Catalan master builders lambards might have emerged, either
from the outcome of a local evolution or perhaps because they
brought the name (already with these connotations) with them
from Italy97. The timeline of the phenomenon clearly advocates
on behalf of this possibility. In fact, the custom of transforming
demonyms into professional adjectives (especially but not
exclusively in relation to architecture) is indeed welldocumented in 12th and 13th century Italy (but not in the first
half of the 11th century). Thus, the antelami and campionesi
working on the great cathedrals in the Po Valley operate this
way, as has been extensively studied98. Outside of architecture,
the phenomenon recurs throughout Europe. And as if that were
not enough, the most celebrated example of a similar semantic
evolution involves the same demonym, Lombard, which, as is
well-known, ended up becoming synonymous with banker or
usurer in northern Europe starting in the 13th century. The
polysemy of the concept, it goes without saying, speaks volumes
in favour of the mobility of northern Italians during the Late
Middle Ages and the success of their various enterprises99.
97 Nevertheless, some evidences of a use of the word lombard as a synonim of
builder in Italy (especially in the Tuscan coast) are not clear at all: G. BIANCHI,
Maestri costruttori lombardi nei cantieri della Toscana centro-meridionale (secoli
XII-XV). Indizi documentari ed evidenze materiali, in Magistri dEuropa, 1997,
155-166.
98 As known, the bibliography about these artists is extensive. For an updated
panoramic view, wait until the issue of S. LOMARTIRE, Comacini, Campionesi,
Antelami, Lombardi. Problemi terminologici e storiografici, in Els Comacini i
larquitectura, in course of publication.
99 Du Cange reports some documental sources on this circumstance, but he
does not report anything about the association between lombard and builder
in Catalonia: C. DU CANGE, Glossarium Mediae et Infimae Latinitatis, Graz
1954, IV, 24-25 (fac-simile of the Editio Nova from 1883-1887). On the
The use of the term lambard to describe the trade of

architect in Raimon Lambards contract captures how this
custom also arose in Catalonia, and it should come as no
surprise that the first place where it appears documented is
precisely in La Seu dUrgell. Perhaps even Raimon Lambard
himself (id est, Raimon de Narg, the lambard) had some
kind of direct contact with the workshop of Italian builders100,
because it is clear that when he was hired to finish the
cathedral he was already a mature man. In any event, I believe
that the hypothesis that I have just posited is the most
plausible explanation for the phenomenon. Assuming that the
origin of this phenomenon can be traced back to a massive
migration of Lombard masons that took place 150 year earlier
and for which there is no evidence is frankly a much less
reasonable conjecture.
Obviously, I am keenly aware that I began by criticising the
deus ex machina way in which the Lombard masters from
around AD 1000 stormed into the historiography of the
Catalan Romanesque, and now I myself am resorting to a
similar strategy by claiming the existence of new Lombard
masters conveniently situated in the 12th century and linked to
La Seu dUrgell. They convincingly explain the only unresolved
point in my initial hypothesis, the transformation of the
demonym Lambard into a synonym of builder, but: Have I
perchance created a new deus ex machina more suitable for my
interests? I hope not...
However, I think it has been established that the technical
evolution that took place in the early 11th century in Catalan
architecture must not be related to the mass arrival of
Lombards. There is no reason to think that. The arrival of new
technical knowledge was derived from the learning and
transmission of this knowledges by some of the intellectual
figures of the times, especially monks or clergymen.
Nevertheless, to deny the arrival of the Lombard masters in
Catalonia does not mean that Italy, Rome, and their artistic
past should no longer be considered a fundamental source and
a vigorous model for the definition and the evolution of
Catalan Romanesque art.
Universitat Autnoma de Barcelona
expansion of the lombard bankers: D. JACOBY, The Migration of Merchants

and Craftsmen: a Mediterranean Perspective (12th-15th Century), in Le
migrazioni in Europa. Secc. XIII-XVIII, S. Cavaciocchi, ed., Prato 1994, 541
and more. See also J. LE GOFF, Marchands et banquiers du Moyen ge, Paris
1956, 40.
100 As suggested, for example, in P. PUJOL I TUBAU, La catedral de la Seo de
Urgel, Ilerda, VIII (1947), 46.
Photographic credits
1-6, 8-11, 13-16, 18-23: photografs by the author; 7, 12: from: PUIG
CADAFALCH, 1918; 17: from Nicholaus e larte del suo tempo; 1985.
119

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12 Duran:Layout 1 14/04/10 18:10 Pagina 99

The Lombard masters as a deus ex machina in Catalan First Romanesque

The importance of the Lombard tradition in the seminal

Lombard masters, my aim from the start has been to determine

This article is part of the research project HUM2006-12475 of the Universitat

Lombard masters would be the heirs of the ancient magistri comacini

12 Duran:Layout 1 14/04/10 18:10 Pagina 100

Arte Lombarda | JOAN DURAN-PORTA

Catalan Romanesque, and not just in terms of the architecture

The Lombard question in Romanesque Catalonia

1. Galliano, San Vincenzo, exterior view.

de France10. In this text, Puig accepted the prevailing idea of the

12 Duran:Layout 1 14/04/10 18:10 Pagina 101

The Lombard masters as a deus ex machina in Catalan First Romanesque

ideas, in which Lombardy becomes a transmitting hub more

Francastels discourse seems to be less to reflect on the First

The theory of First Romanesque first appears in J. PUIG I CADAFALCH, Le

12 Duran:Layout 1 14/04/10 18:10 Pagina 102

Arte Lombarda | JOAN DURAN-PORTA

2. Corbera de Llobregat (Barcelona), Sant Pon de Corbera, detail of masonry.

the Catalan Romanesque. That is, it enables us to regard the

interpretation was generally accepted in the Simposi Internacional Els

In Catalonia, it is understandable that the Lombard hypothesis

12 Duran:Layout 1 14/04/10 18:10 Pagina 103

The Lombard masters as a deus ex machina in Catalan First Romanesque

Catalan nuclei is counterintuitive, given the proximity and

The use of the same construction and lexis resources is the

cryptes monumentales dans la Catalogne dOliba. De Sant Pere de Rodes la

12 Duran:Layout 1 14/04/10 18:10 Pagina 104

Arte Lombarda | JOAN DURAN-PORTA

3. Cardona, Sant Vicen.

and the horizontal conception of the prominent lines in the

Romanesque studies: F. GALTIER, Lglise ligurienne San Paragorio de Noli et ses

Homenatge a mossn Jess Tarragona. Miscellnia, Lleida 1996, 89-105.

12 Duran:Layout 1 14/04/10 18:10 Pagina 105

The Lombard masters as a deus ex machina in Catalan First Romanesque

4. Noli, San Paragorio.

which may well be parallel to some of the coeval experiences in the

examine the issue of building technique. The massive movement

Moyen Age, P. Beck, ed., Paris 1998, 179-185.

12 Duran:Layout 1 14/04/10 18:10 Pagina 106

Arte Lombarda | JOAN DURAN-PORTA

With regard to the issue of the artists itinerancy,

There is no direct mention of a single Lombard master. In

lenqute: de la Picardie au Portugal, lapparition du systme anthroponymique

X. BARRAL, Contre litinrance des artistes du premier art roman mridional, in

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The Lombard masters as a deus ex machina in Catalan First Romanesque

ethnonim, now in the category of anthroponym, swiftly joined

term Lombard until it became synonymous with builder

PIQUER, 2007, 99.

There are indeed some Lombards exceptionnally mentioned in Catalan

12 Duran:Layout 1 14/04/10 18:10 Pagina 108

Arte Lombarda | JOAN DURAN-PORTA

around Europe, where Italian builders have been more specifically

specific presence of Italian builders. In any case, we could not

DONOFRIO, Artifices lambardi nella Campania medievale, in Medioevo: arte

The assumption of Lombard masons working at Dijon probably became

Lambard as a synonym of builder in late medieval

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The Lombard masters as a deus ex machina in Catalan First Romanesque

5. La Seu dUrgell, cathedral of Santa Maria.