Costa Brava Guide

Figueres parish church. Probably raised on the site of a former early Christian church, the oldest parts still preserved date from the 10th-11th century in part of wall on the north side with an embrasure at the foot of the belltower. Towards the end of the 14th century King Peter the Ceremonious ordered the construction of a new church in Figueres, and a single-nave Gothic-style church was raised over the Romanesque building, with no cross vault or apse aisle. This is retained to this day in its original form up to where the apse began. In the 18th century a cross vault and polygonal apse were added to it, replacing the former Gothic sanctuary. At the end of the 19th century, in 1895, the dome was rebuilt following a plan by the architect Josep Azemar i Pont. At the start of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 the church sustained serious damage when it was set on fire and some of its finest features knocked down. Between 1941 and 1948, however, it was rebuilt with stone blocks, the cross vault crowned with an octagonal cupola, following the Gothic style of the former nave and thus achieving a unified, sober and imposing whole.