Qualla: Monastery of Pedralbes https://qualla.com/monastery-of-pedralbes en-us © 2026 Bendyline Thu, 20 Aug 2026 16:39:03 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/s/p/3/e/monastery-of-pedralbes-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Monastery of Pedralbes https://qualla.com/monastery-of-pedralbes Monastery of Pedralbes: Introduction https://qualla.com/monastery-of-pedralbes/ Photo credit Jordiferrer, CC BY-SA 3.0. The name gives it away, if you know where to listen. Petras Albas -- white stones -- is what 14th-century documents called this place, and the pale stone walls of the Monastery of Pedralbes still catch the Catalan light as cleanly as they did when Queen Elisenda de Montcada watched them rise in 1326. She had persuaded her husband, King James II of Aragon, to build it for her, and when he died just a year later, she moved into a palace she had annexed to the cloister. She would live there for the next forty years, a queen in voluntary seclusion, close enough to hear the Poor Clares chanting but never quite one of them.

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Image: Jordiferrer | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/p/3/e/monastery-of-pedralbes-wp/sp3e-monastery-of-pedralbes-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Monastery of Pedralbes: A Queen's Retreat https://qualla.com/monastery-of-pedralbes/ Photo credit Pere López, CC BY-SA 3.0. Elisenda de Montcada was not a woman who left things to chance. The monastery she commissioned was not merely a convent -- it was a statement of dynastic prestige secured by practical guarantees. She placed it under the direct protection of Barcelona's Consell de Cent, the Counci...

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Image: Pere López | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/p/3/e/monastery-of-pedralbes-wp/sp3e-monastery-of-pedralbes-a-queens-retreat.mp3 0:06 2 full Monastery of Pedralbes: Frescoes and Devotion https://qualla.com/monastery-of-pedralbes/ Photo credit Enfo (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. Walk into the Chapel of St. Michael, restored and reopened in 2018, and the 14th century closes in around you. The frescoes that cover its walls were painted by Ferrer Bassa in 1346, and they show an artist deeply influenced by the Italian master Giotto. The figures are solid and...

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Image: Enfo (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/p/3/e/monastery-of-pedralbes-wp/sp3e-monastery-of-pedralbes-frescoes-and-devotion.mp3 0:06 3 full Monastery of Pedralbes: The Cloister of Orange Trees https://qualla.com/monastery-of-pedralbes/ Photo credit Pere López, CC BY-SA 3.0. The three-story cloister stretches forty meters along each side, its wide arches rising from columns whose capitals bear the emblems of the Kings of Aragon and the House of Montcada. Orange trees and palms fill the central garden, their greenery framed by stone arcades that have ...

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Image: Pere López | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/p/3/e/monastery-of-pedralbes-wp/sp3e-monastery-of-pedralbes-the-cloister-of-orange-trees.mp3 0:06 4 full Monastery of Pedralbes: Still Standing, Still Living https://qualla.com/monastery-of-pedralbes/ Photo credit Enfo, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Reapers' War of the 1640s expelled the nuns, but they returned. Franco's regime threatened Catalan institutions, but Pedralbes endured. The monastery was declared a national monument in 1991, and the remains of Elisenda's palace -- long thought entirely lost -- were rediscove...

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Image: Enfo | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/p/3/e/monastery-of-pedralbes-wp/sp3e-monastery-of-pedralbes-still-standing-still-living.mp3 0:06 5 full