The things that were Temporary exhibition

Of all the places we could be in the world, there is no doubt we are in Girona -Saint Narcissus, Ermessenda and the Call (old Jewish quarter). It is not often that the foundation myth of a city is built on so few symbols that have so much significance. A reliquary, a ring, a piece of parchment. Like perfume bottles, these objects are precious both inside and out, precious in a way that has less to do with beauty than with their durability. Even if the perfume has dried up, the memory of the scent lingers on, just as the creaking floorboards of an old house still echo the footsteps of former occupants, their nightly whispers. To become the emblems of a place, to hold all the blessings and all the disquiet of not being things in themselves, but rather mediators of an idea attached to them, like a speck of dust or a wound, entails an enormous responsibility that not all metaphors are able to bear.

Read more Return

• 
• 

Girona is both Jewish and Christian. This 18th-century polychrome wood carving is one of the representations of Saint Narcissus that most clearly shows the attributes of the city's patron bishop: the mitre, the cope and the flies decorating it. The 15th-century mezuzah, preserved in the Biblical Museum, contains the verses of Deuteronomy that define the meaning of Judaism. And, the most noteworthy of all, the ring inscribed with a name in Arabic and Latin: Ermessendis, reminds us of the noblewoman who, in the 11th century, governed and named the entire city.