Vic Medieval Art Museum - Museu Episcopal de Vic (MEV)

About Museo Episcopal De Vic

The Vic Medieval Art Museum, Museu Episcopal de Vic (MEV) contains a magnificent collection of medieval art of paintings and sculpture from the Catalan Romanesque and Gothic periods. The collections of precious metals, textile, foundry, glass and ceramics also form the representation of decorative art in Catalonia.

Museu Episcopal de Vic (MEV) is one of Europe's premier Religious art museums counting over twenty-nine thousand pieces on display.

Vic Medieval Art Museum History

The Museum was founded after the Artistic Archaeological Exhibition of Retrospective Art held in Vic in 1868 in conjunction with the founding of the Societat Arqueològica de Vic, which was entrusted with the creation of a Lapidary Museum. This was the foundation of the Museo Episcopal de Vic in 1891.

The first curator of the museum was Antoni d'Espona i de Nuix (1891-1898). The outstanding collections of medieval art and decorative arts put together in those first years were published in 1893 in the form of a catalogue, traditionally considered the first scientific catalogue of any Catalan museum. To begin with, the collections were exhibited above the old Gothic cloister of the cathedral, on a floor built in 1804 by Bishop Francesc de Veyan.

In 1898 Josep Gudiol i Cunill (1872-1931) replaced Antoni d'Espona and became the driving force behind the acquisition, installation and classification of the museum's collections. Shortly afterwards, in 1902, Josep Gudiol i Cunill published Nocions d'Arqueologia Sagrada Catalana, in which he established the criteria for the classification of the arts. Josep Gudiol i Cunill's musicographic project was based on the separate exhibition of the collections, each one ordered according to chronological and typological criteria. All the objects the museum added over the years were exhibited to the public in rooms that soon became too small.

Succeeded by Eduard Junyent i Subirà (1932-1978), Eduard gave priority to increasing the exhibition space of the collections of Romanesque and Gothic painting and sculpture. This wish to create a medieval art gallery unique in Europe, with Romanesque paintings on wood beginning with the Catalan masters of the 12th century. however, enlargement of the exhibition of the collections was not possible until the premises of the school of Sant Josep became available, where from 1948 to 1967, in successive stages, the first and second floors of the school were opened to the public with the collections of art and archaeology and the inner courtyard with the lapidary collection.

His successor, Miquel dels Sants Gros i Pujol (1933-present), kept the layout of the rooms he had inherited from Eduard Junyent. During his years as the curator of the Episcopal Museum he promoted several studies on the museum collections and he inaugurated the publication of catalogues of different collections.

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