Plaça del Pi – Plaça Sant Josep Oriol – Basílica de Santa Maria del Pi
A Gothic basilica surrounded by two picturesque squares
We present to you one of the most charming corners of the Gothic Quarter. The cemeteries that once surrounded the temple, built in the 14th century, were transformed into small squares where painters and artisans exhibit their works.

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Cemeteries transformed into charming squares
Santa Maria del Pi is a Catalan Gothic basilica built at the beginning of the 14th century in what is now the picturesque Pi Square in Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter. The church features a single nave measuring 54 meters in length, 17.5 meters in width, and 27 meters in height, with a polygonal apse and side chapels nestled between Gothic buttresses.
On the main façade, flanked by two towers and a large octagonal bell tower, a twelve-branched rose window from the 14th century stands out above the main entrance. It was destroyed in the 1936 fire and was rebuilt by Josep Maria Jujol in 1943, based on photographs and studies of the rose windows in the monasteries of Pedralbes and Sant Cugat. Inside, special mention should be made of the altar, which was designed in 1967 by Joaquim de Ros i de Ramis during the temple’s restoration, and which is presided over by a Gothic sculpture of the Virgin Mary from the 14th century.
The basilica originally had three cemeteries, each of which now occupies one of the surrounding charming squares.
The Plaça del Pi, located at the main entrance of the church, is a flat space set between two streams and the old Roman road that once led out of the city to the west, and was characterised by a singular pine tree. When the original pine died, it was replaced by another to preserve its memory, which still stood during the French invasion, when a Napoleonic soldier pierced its trunk with a bayonet, killing it. Later, another pine was planted, and then another, until reaching the current one, which was planted in 1985.
The main cemetery of the Basilica of Santa Maria del Pi was located in the space now occupied by the Plaça de Sant Josep Oriol, along the lateral façade of the church. In this little square with a bohemian atmosphere, where painters gather weekly to display their works, you will also find a sculpture of Àngel Guimerà by Josep Cardona i Furró, the Palau Fiveller—dating from the 16th century and currently home to the Catalan Agricultural Institute of Saint Isidore—and, hidden at the top of the entrance portal of one of the square’s buildings, a statue of Saint Josep Oriol.
How to get to Santa Maria del Pi?
From the Gothic Quarter stop on the Red Route of the Barcelona Tourist Bus, you can stroll through the district and arrive at the basilica and its squares.
In addition to the Gothic basilica, in the Plaça del Pi you will find the House of the Reselling Shopkeepers, an 18th-century building belonging to the merchants’ guild, richly decorated with sgraffito.
For the curious
- According to popular tradition, one of the surviving sailors from the Saracen invasion found an image of the Virgin Mary in the crown of a pine tree, to whom a small chapel was dedicated that eventually became the church of Santa Maria del Pi.
- At the top of the bell tower of the basilica of Santa Maria del Pi, you will find a small circular terrace where you can enjoy a 360-degree view of the entire centre of Barcelona.