Evangeliaria covers with Jesus between Saint Peter and Saint Paul and the Calvary

In the Gothic period all the treasuries of the Catalan cathedrals had two, three, or more evangeliarias with historiated silver covers where white and gilt silver alternated, and they often bore referential inscriptions engraved on a clear green or blue enamel ground. Vic Cathedral's 'codex argenti', or pontifical evangeliaria, shows the Calvary on the front and Jesus between Saints Peter and Paul on the back, in embossed figures that symbolise the beginning of the redemption and the institution of the church of Saint Peter, in Rome, as is made clear in the lateral inscription around the edge. On the two plates of the covers there appears the stamp identifying the city of Vic. Artistically and chronologically speaking, this work is related to the great processional cross in Vic Cathedral, made in 1394 by the Vic silversmith Joan Carbonell, and it is highly likely that both pieces were made by the same master, as both of them have technical and artistic points in common with the ones made in Barcelona around the year 1400 and some very common characters, basically Italianate, consisting in crude but expressive figures, full of ingenuity. In the 16th century, in about 1558, the earlier text of the Gospels was replaced by a more modern story by the writer Antoni de Vilarreal, and then the Barcelona silversmith Sebastià Roure adapted the old covers to the new text as can be seen by the clasps, the corner pieces and the reinforcements.