Altar from Santa Maria in Lluçà

The Italo-Byzantine current that arrived in Catalonia around the year 1200 was developed in this country until the mid-13th century, and has in the altar from Lluçà the most significant example of the last period of this style. Unlike the works conserved from the first period of this current, on the Lluçà altar there appears a new iconographic scene. It is the Coronation of the Virgin, much used in these same years by the new French Gothic art. The great artistic quality of this work has made it possible to single out the figure of an anonymous master with a defined personality, with whom the frontal from Santa Magdalena in Solanllong (Ripollès) has been identified, and within his circle the magnificent mural paintings from the church of Sant Pau in Casserres, kept in the Museu Diocesà de Solsona. The altar frontal is centred upon the figure of the Virgin with the Child, in accordance with the dedication of the old Marian monastery of Santa Maria in Lluçà, where the altar is from. The mother holds in her right hand the apple from the tree of Paradise, the symbol of Mary as the new Eve, who with her son redeemed humankind from the original sin. Four angels with the names of the evangelists – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – hold up the starry representation of the firmament with the sun and the moon, the symbol of eternity. In the four compartments of the frontal there are the scenes of the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Adoration of the Magi and the Flight to Egypt. In one of the side panels there is the previously-mentioned scene of Jesus crowning the Virgin with the inscription: “Regina Celorum”, and in the other side panel the scene of the Virgin surrounded by the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost accompanied by the apostle John.