The main altarpiece of the church of Sant Feliu de Girona was a work of great size and complexity executed over sixteen years, from 1504 to 1520. Today it is one of the best preserved examples of the transition from the Gothic style to the new Renaissance models in Catalonia.
Different craftsmen worked on its execution: Joan Dartrica (1504) carried out the woodwork and the decorative carving or tracery; the imagery was commissioned from Joan of Aragon (1505), Pere Coll and Pedro Robredo (1507); and the gilding and painting were carried out by Pere de Fontaines (1515) and Joan de Burgunya (1518), who completed the work in 1520. The altarpiece became a grandiose ensemble of nearly 15 meters high and 11 meters wide, and one of the most expensive of the time, paid for in large part thanks to testamentary bequests.
The Art Museum exhibits a large part of the pieces that make up the altarpiece. The museum renovation that took place in 2018 in rooms 9 and 10, dedicated to the altarpiece, includes an audiovisual that explains the history of this great work and where you can see a virtual recreation of the entire altarpiece, as it was before 1936, made from a few black and white photographs and the parts and fragments that are preserved in the church of Sant Feliu and the Art Museum.
Sculptors, images, gilders and painters
The altarpiece of Sant Feliu was begun in 1504. At that time, the Girona lands and especially the city had become a point of attraction for many foreign artists, most of whom had arrived from northern Europe, who traveled alone or with their workshop in search of new commissions. The college of canons of the then collegiate church of Sant Feliu de Girona decided to promote the work of the main altarpiece at the beginning of the 16th century. No one could have foreseen that its construction would last sixteen years, that five masters would participate (five carpenters and two painters), and that it would be one of the most expensive works of the time.
The work on the altarpiece was begun by Joan Dartrica (van Etrica or Venetrica, according to sources), a carpenter of Flemish origin and one of the most active sculptors in Girona in the early 16th century, who settled in Girona where he had married in 1498. On 10 March 1504 he signed the first order to execute the carving of the lower part, the platform and the sub-platform, of the Sant Feliu altarpiece. The following year, on 5 June 1505, he signed a new contract to complete the entire wooden structure. Dartrica designed the form, full of traceries, canopies and pinnacles, following the influences of Flemish art. His death, in 1507, did not allow him to finish it.
On June 5, 1505, the Aragonese image maker Joan of Aragon was commissioned to carve the walnut wood of the main figures of the altarpiece: the Virgin Mary, Saint Narcís and Saint Feliu. A little-documented sculptor, he worked with Dartrica on other altarpiece commissions in Girona.
In 1507, the sculptor Pere Coll, a carpenter from Girona, was contracted to continue the work, but three months later, on November 30, a new commission was placed with Pere Robredo, a carpenter from Burgos who had settled in Girona between 1507 and 1512. Robredo completed all the wooden work: the structure, openwork traceries, pinnacles, canopies and the images and reliefs that were to adorn the entire altarpiece. His work, completed in 1510, is the result of workshop work, with solutions of different artistic quality, characterized by the introduction of details, ornaments and elements typical of the Castilian Plateresque Renaissance.
In 1515, work resumed on the altarpiece, which had been waiting to be gilded, polychrome and painted for five years. The commission was given to Pere de Fontaines, a painter from Flanders, documented in Girona since 1500 and a clear exponent of Flemish-influenced painting. Fontaines’ workshop gilded and polychromed all the furniture and set of figures and painted the eight panels of the lower bench. Fontaines’ death, on 12 April 1518, must have affected his collaborators, including Pere Mates; they were probably the ones who left a witness by painting on the same altarpiece the day and year of their master’s death. Several works by Fontaines are documented in Girona and Barcelona, but only these eight panels of the Sant Feliu altarpiece are preserved.
The commission for the six panels in the central compartments of the altarpiece, dedicated to the life and passion of the martyr Saint Feliu, was given to Joan de Burgunya (or Borgonya, according to the documents), a painter originally from central Europe, documented in Orihuela and Valencia since 1496, and established in Barcelona from 1510, where he died in 1526. Burgunya was to be one of the most outstanding artists of the period. His painting, applied to oil –one of the first examples of this technique in Catalonia–, is rich in chromaticisms and decorative details and, although it takes compositional models from Flemish engravings, especially those of Dürer, it incorporates the Renaissance spirit in the architectural setting, in the costumes and in the elegant attitudes of the figures.
The altarpiece of Sant Feliu was presided over by sculptures of the patron saints of Girona, Sant Feliu and Sant Narcís, and of the Virgin Mary. It developed a complex and extensive iconographic program that exalted the triumph of the Church and salvation through faith: in the lower bench, scenes from the life of Mary, prophets of the Old Testament and Saints George and Michael the Archangel; in the bench or predella, the twelve apostles in half relief, with the resurrected Christ in the center; separating the six large panels painted with scenes from the life and martyrdom of Sant Feliu, six pillars with carved figures of kings, prophets, angels and blessed ones; and at the top, crowning the canopy of the Virgin Mary, reliefs of the Last Judgment and two figures of praying people. Everything was framed with traceries and canopies, and with ornamental carvings in the Flemish style, and crowned by tall pinnacles in Gothic style.
Altarpiece of Sant Feliu before the Civil War
Reconstruction done by Burzon Comenge
From 1936 to 2024, with the latest acquisition
In 1936, at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, the altarpiece was dismantled from Sant Feliu and stored in the cathedral of Girona. In 1943, a new altarpiece was rebuilt for the church of Sant Feliu using parts of the old one: fragments of the sides or dust cover, the figures of the apostolate and the image of the Virgin Mary. The rest is preserved in the Museum of Art, where it is exhibited. However, during the war and post-war years, some fragments ended up in the hands of private collectors.
The Friends of the Art Museum, who occasionally support the museum with acquisitions for its collection, purchased a piece that belonged to the dust jacket, and donated it to the Museum in April 2024.
The piece, a fragment of about 123 cm high and about 90 cm wide, is the work of Pere Robredo. This fragment would correspond to one of the sides called the guardapols or bracelet, which surrounded the altarpiece as a frame and of which other fragments are preserved. In the rich and varied iconographic program of the Sant Feliu altarpiece, the guardapols of the sides were dedicated to the tree of Jesse, an iconographic representation of the genealogy of Christ from Jesse, father of King David, to Joseph of Nazareth, earthly father of Jesus. As a theme and iconographic representation, it was very successful during the Gothic and Renaissance periods, and served to highlight and reinforce the link between the Old and New Testaments. It was usually represented from an interweaving of branches and plants, simulating a real genealogical tree, in which the series of kings of the dynasty of David were arranged. This fragment, a crowned figure with a mace in his hand, would correspond to one of these kings of the dynasty, without being able to identify which one. Of the original dust jacket, only 12 fragments of tracery are preserved and of these only one of them, 287 cm long, with figures of kings.
Currently, the Art Museum exhibits several pieces, including the six panels that trace the life of Saint Feliu, painted by Joan de Burgunya; several wooden sculptures by Pere Robredo, gilded and painted by the workshop of Pere de Fontaines; the two final panels of the bracelet, one with the representation of a fantastic being called a “baboon”, half man and half eagle, and the other with the representation of a being half lion and half eagle, called a “griu”, a symbol of vigilance and protection; and the panels of the underbench painted by Fontaines, including those dedicated to the Adoration of the Magi and the Assumption of the Virgin Mary; as well as a set of pinnacles and spikes that crowned the work.
