Dome

Flying buttresses and gargoyles of the cathedral on left, surrounding buildings of the Barrio Gotico; An outstanding example of Early Gothic architecture in Catalonia, Barcelona Cathedral was built during the height of the city’s prosperity. The present building is the third church on the site; the remains of the first, a Constantinian basilica of 559 CE (destroyed by the Moors in the 10th century), are still visible in a gallery 4 m below street level. The first stone of the new (third) cathedral was laid in 1298. By 1317, when Jaume Fabre came from Palma at the request of James II, King of Aragon, the first ambulatory chapels had been erected. Fabre oversaw the construction of the choir (1329) and transept (1338) and the installation of the relics of St Eulalia, to whom the cathedral is dedicated. The remainder of the nave, aisles and cloister were completed in the 15th century under Bartoloméu Gual and Andrés Escuder; the lantern and western façade were finally erected in 1887-1890 (to a design of 1408). Source: Grove Art Online; http://www.oxfordartonline.com/ (accessed 5/21/2013)