The Royal monastery of Santa Maria de Pedralbes conserves several sets of mural painting made, mostly, between the 14th and 15th centuries. Particularly noteworthy are the paintings of the 14th century Chapel of St. Michael, a key work both for its uniqueness and for its innovative character, which links Barcelona with the technical and artistic novelties that appeared in Tuscany cities around 1300.

The restoration works of these paintings, completed in 2018, provided a large amount of information on technical, historical, and stylistic aspects. The Museum of the Monastery of Pedralbes wants to disseminate through the use of new technologies applied to museography with the permanent exhibition “Touching the soul. The murals of the chapel of  St. Michael”, starting March 27, 2026.

This new museum space consists of 2 areas: on the one hand, an introductory exhibition on the paintings of the chapel of St. Michael. In this exhibition, the historical and cultural context in Europe, Italy, the Crown of Aragon and the city of Barcelona is explained, and its influence on the paintings of the Chapel of St. Michael through the expansion of Franciscanism. It also explains the process of restoration of the paintings, completed in 2018, and the large amount of information obtained about them during these works. This area includes several videos and an interactive one where you can see the large number of important public buildings that were built in the Barcelona of the 14th century.

The second area of this space is an immersive and interactive room that is accessed once the route of the previous exhibition is finished. The experience begins with the projection of a video, and then the visitor is presented with an immersive three-dimensional image of the interior of the chapel of Salt Miquel. In this room there is a motion sensor through which the visitor can move through 3D recreation with the movements of his hands. He can also approach the paintings to observe them with a high degree of detail, or move away to have an overview of the different panels. The visitor will also find many points that you can activate to see 5 video capsules.