Portal de l'Àngel — The Vanished City Gate

Portal de l'Àngel in Barcelona is a bustling pedestrian street built over a 13th-century city gate originally named the Gate of the Blind. Renamed after Saint Vincent Ferrer reported seeing a protective angel there in the 15th century, the gate was eventually demolished. A 1955 modern replica of the guardian angel, sculpted by Àngel Ferrant, now sits in a wall niche on a nearby building facade.

Barcelona · from the walk “Stones & Secrets: Hidden Courtyards of the Barri Gòtic” · audio ~3 min · Generated

Portal de l'Àngel — The Vanished City Gate

Avinguda del Portal de l'Àngel, Barcelona

Why was Barcelona's Portal de l'Àngel originally called the Gate of the Blind?

Look around you. Shoppers, street performers, bags full of fast fashion. This is Portal de l'Angel... one of the most walked streets in all of Europe. But two thousand years ago, this was a Romman road, leading from the sea inland toward the Valles. And in the thirteenth century, right where you're standing, there was a Gate... a massive stone gate in Barcelona's medieval walls.......... Now here's what most people don't know. That gate wasn't always called the Angel's Gate. Its original name was Portal dels Orbs... the Gate of the Blind. The esplanade just outside the walls was crowded with beggars and blind people, living in nearby slums, hoping for charity from those passing through. So the locals simply called it the street of the blind.......... Then came the legend. Sometime in the fifteenth century, a fiery Dominican preacher named Saint Vincent Ferrer was walking toward Barcelona. He was already famous across Europe... a man who drew crowds of Ten Thousand followers, who was believed to have the gift of miracles. And as he crossed through this very gate... he saw an angel. Sword in hand, standing guard. When Ferrer asked who it was, the angel replied that he was protecting the entire city of Barcelona by order of the Almighty. The angel was credited with saving the city from a plague epidemic. And from that moment, the Gate of the Blind became... the Angel's Gate.......... A small chapel with a statue of the angel was placed right here. But that statue has had a Wild journey. When the medieval walls were torn down, the chapel vanished and the angel was moved to a church in Ostafrancs. During the Spanish Civil War, the original was destroyed. Then, in nineteen fifty five, the sculptor Angel Ferrant created a modern replica, which was installed in a niche on the Bank of Spain building nearby. If you look carefully at the facades above the shop windows, you can still spot it today... a winged guardian, sword drawn, watching over the shoppers below.......... And just steps from here, down a little side street called Carrer Montsio, you'll find els Quatre Gats... The Four Cats. It opened in eighteen ninety seven in a Gothic-style building designed by architect Puig i Cadafalch. A seventeen year old Pablo Picasso held his very first solo exhibition there in eighteen ninety nine. Gaudi, Granados, Albeniz... they all came to drink and argue about art in the shadow of this vanished gate. The Angel's Gate is long gone. But its stories... they're still right here, hiding in plain sight above the crowd.

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