Barcelona museum refuses to return Sijena murals to monastery

Barcelona’s Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (MNAC) is refusing to immediately return the 12th-century Romanesque Sijena murals to the Royal Monastery of Sijena despite a May Supreme Court order requiring their transfer within a month. The murals, removed to Barcelona in 1936 after damage during the Spanish Civil War and displayed at MNAC since 1961, are installed in a sealed section of the museum’s Oval Hall on specially made arches. Tensions escalated after a November event in the Oval Hall involving singer Rosalía, which lawyer Jorge Español (representing Villanueva de Sijena) argued could harm the fragile paintings; the event proceeded. MNAC director Pepe Serra later dismissed the claim and Español demanded €90,000 for alleged “moral damages,” while Aragón’s culture director Pedro Olloqui accused Serra of contempt; MNAC says the mural rooms are isolated and events pose “absolutely no risk.”

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