Valencia Cathedral

Valencia Cathedral stands in the heart of the old city with a door on each of three squares — Romanesque, Gothic and Baroque — and the octagonal Micalet tower beside it. Inside is the Holy Chalice, venerated as the cup of the Last Supper, Renaissance angels rediscovered in 2004 after three centuries hidden above a false vault, and two paintings by Goya. The visit costs €12 with an audio guide; the tower is €3 more.

From mosque to cathedral

The site has been sacred since Roman times, and tradition puts a temple here; under the cathedral are a Roman street and houses, and next door, in the Almoina, the remains of the Visigothic cathedral. The main mosque of Muslim Valencia stood here, and after James I of Aragon took the city in 1238 it served as the cathedral. On 22 June 1262 Bishop Andrés de Albalat laid the first stone of the present building, and the mosque was pulled down as the new church rose.

Most of the cathedral is Gothic: the Apostles’ Door, finished by 1354; the lantern over the crossing; the chapter house, now the chapel of the Holy Chalice; and the Micalet, begun in 1381 and joined to the church when the nave was lengthened in the late 15th century. After a fire in 1469, Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, the future Pope Alexander VI, brought two Italian painters to decorate the apse. The Baroque Door of the Irons was added in the 18th century, and from 1774 the interior was given a Neoclassical skin, most of it stripped away again in the 1970s. The cathedral was declared a national monument in 1931.

The visitor’s cheat sheet

What to see

The three doors

Visitors go in by the Door of the Irons on Plaza de la Reina, named after the iron railing in front of it. It was designed by the German Konrad Rudolf and built from 1703 to 1741, a curving Baroque front over 36 metres high, meant to be seen up the narrow street opposite. On Plaza de la Virgen is the Gothic Apostles’ Door, with statues of the twelve apostles (the originals are in the museum) and a rose window shaped as a six-pointed star. Round the corner, on Plaza de la Almoina, the Romanesque Palau or Almoina Door, the oldest of the three, has fourteen heads above its arch which, tradition says, are the seven couples from Lleida who resettled the city.

The nave and the lantern

Inside, the Gothic nave was uncovered again in the 1970s, when most of the Neoclassical stucco came off. Over the crossing rises the octagonal lantern, about 40 metres high, its windows filled with thin sheets of alabaster rather than glass. Expectant mothers traditionally walk nine times round the inside of the church, a custom the cathedral still mentions.

The angels of the high altar

In 1472 Rodrigo Borgia hired Paolo da San Leocadio and Francesco Pagano to paint the apse, and they had finished by 1481, by most accounts: some of the earliest Renaissance painting in Spain. Two centuries later a Baroque vault was built below them and they were forgotten, until restorers found them in June 2004. Ten angels playing musical instruments circle the vault above the high altar.

The Goyas

In the chapel of St Francis Borgia hang two canvases painted by Goya in 1788: St Francis taking leave of his family at Gandía to join the Jesuits, and the saint at the bedside of a dying man who refuses repentance, with demons waiting for his soul.

The Holy Chalice

The visit ends in the chapel of the Holy Chalice, the old chapter house of the 14th century, under a star vault, with an alabaster altarpiece by the Florentine Giuliano di Nofri and the chains of the harbour of Marseille, carried off by Alfonso V. In a case in the middle is the chalice: an agate cup some 2,000 years old on a medieval gold stem and base set with pearls and stones. Tradition says it is the cup of the Last Supper, taken to Rome by St Peter and to Spain by St Lawrence; its documented history begins at San Juan de la Peña in 1399, and Alfonso V deposited it with the cathedral in 1437. Two popes, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, have said Mass with it. The museum, on the route before it, holds the cathedral’s treasures and the Roman remains under its floor.

The Micalet

The bell tower takes its name from its great hour bell, the Micalet, dedicated to St Michael. Its 207 steps climb past the bell chamber to a terrace 51 metres up, with views over the old town to the sea; only 50 people are allowed up at a time. Tickets are separate, at the foot of the tower.

The Water Tribunal

Every Thursday at noon (on the Wednesday if Thursday is a public holiday), eight farmers in black smocks sit in a ring outside the Apostles’ Door. This is the Tribunal de las Aguas, which settles disputes over water among the irrigation communities of the plain of Valencia; its rulings are given out loud, in Valencian, and are final. Tradition traces it to Muslim Valencia, before the cathedral was built, and UNESCO added it to the intangible heritage of humanity in 2009. Often there is no case and it is over in minutes, so arrive a few minutes before noon.

Don’t miss

• The Holy Chalice In the old chapter house.
• The musician angels Renaissance frescoes over the high altar.
• The Goyas In the chapel of St Francis Borgia.
• The Micalet 207 steps to the best view in Valencia.
• Thursday noon The Water Tribunal at the Apostles’ Door.

Insider tips

More churches in Spain

• Barcelona Cathedral — the Gothic cathedral of the other great Catalan-speaking city.
• Toledo Cathedral — the primate cathedral of Spain, and its treasury.
• Palma Cathedral — La Seu, the Gothic cathedral of Majorca, another conquest of James I.

See all the Spanish churches in this guide →