Abstract

It is well known that between the eleventh and the thirteenth centuries, Medieval Iberia was a cluster of different cultures and artistic traditions (Vanoli 2006). Several political powers, religious beliefs and intellectual backgrounds were to be found in the multifaceted land which lay between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, from colourful and multicultural al-Andalus to the emerging and creative Catalan Counties. From the end of the eleventh century onwards a number of artistic enterprises promoted by Christian rulers seem to herald a new era in the visual arts, placing them in the vanguard of Romanesque Europe.