Photograph of the section of the museum devoted to the Saints. Author: Ramon Manent.
Located in the former sacristy of the Chapel of the Saints and the former storerooms, this section of the museum explains the tradition going back over three centuries that has made Juliana and Semproniana the patron saints of Mataró.
This tradition began when, in the late 17th century, Friar Joan Gaspar Roig published a catalogue of saints from the Principality and announced that the two Saints, whose remains were kept in Sant Cugat del Vallès Monastery, were born in the former Iluro. The people of Mataró, in keeping with the spirituality of the times, immediately welcomed them as their own and initiated a process to obtain some of the remains, a process that was completed in 1772. In 1852, as the culminating moment, following a popular vote, the saints were proclaimed the patron saints of the city.
The space houses a display of documents, objects, images, liturgical ornaments, reliquaries, engravings, programmes, posters and so forth, all related to worship and the feast of the Saints.
We should highlight the urn in which the remains arrived in 1772, the panels depicting the lives of the Saints, the work of Joan Carles Panyó, an extraordinary display of ephemeral baroque art, the silver tabernacle dating from 1827 and the document recording the vote to proclaim the Saints as the city’s patrons in 1852.
