“The exquisite doorway of Montesion is one of the richest pieces of sculpture in Palma.”
(page [16])
The tomb is a beautiful Gothic monument of red marble, but the effigy of Rámon Lull, surrounded by fretted canopies and fantastic heraldic beasts, is only dimly visible in the deep gloom of the church.
A trap door leads down to an immense crypt, where a huddled-up human skeleton is pointed out and the story told of a bloody tragedy enacted in the church in the year 1490. Two of Palma’s greatest families were at deadly feud, and while attending the ceremonies of the Jour des Morts, upon some slight pretext came to blows. The church became a slaughter-house, and before swords were sheathed more than three hundred dead and wounded were left on the field of battle.
Whether the skeleton in the crypt is one of those that fell that memorable day may be doubted; but it is not improbable, for the church and its monastery were founded shortly after the conquest—by monks of the order of St. Francis of Assisi—and were from earliest times one of the chief places of burial for the nobility. The walls of the adjoining cloisters are thick with scutcheons and memorial tablets to those who were once the greatest in the land.
A beautiful colonnade of slender Gothic pillars encloses the monks’ garden, where two geese—sole occupants of the Paradiso—chatter angrily at the intruder. No other sound but the soft rustlings of palm branches and the whispers of the wind in the orange-trees breaks the silence of the long galleries and deserted cells.
From the upper corridor with its broken pavement chequered with dazzling patches of sunshine one looks out from under the deep overshadowing eaves to where the cathedral spires rise dim and distant across half the city. The atmosphere of infinite peace that pervades these cloisters—the sense of seclusion, although so near the busy life outside the walls—must have appealed deeply to the brown-frocked friars who once paced these beautiful walks “revolving many memories.”