Sant Pere Màrtir de Peracamps

The austere interior of Peracamps Church, designed by architect Isidre Puig i Boada, houses a high altar from the former Church of Sant Martí de Llanera (in the town of Torà, La Segarra), a building which today is in a precarious state of conservation. However, one can still observe the interesting Gothic-based architecture with which it was rebuilt in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, with the particularly remarkable svelte and sober form of its single nave, with a series of ribs ending in pretty keystones.

The high altar (from Sant Martí de Llanera)

The old high altar dedicated to Saint Martin, which dates from around 1651, is one of the most successful examples of an altarpiece made by sculptor Joan Grau, originally from Constantí but who settled in Manresa. The lower part (the predella and pedestal) has been lost, along with the sculptures that once stood in the niches, but the rest of the piece remains intact. It is structured in three parts, divided into five sections, two of which show on each level reliefs depicting scenes that tell the story of the saint’s life. The sculptor’s gouge played with classical architecture (breaking pediments with frontons with volutes, holding up pyramids and fantastic lanterns decorating the lower thirds of the Corinthian columns) and filled the space with plant motifs and cherubs’ heads, so typical of seventeenth-century Catalan Baroque art. The composition is similar to that of two other large altarpieces by the same artist, in Sant Benet de Bages and The Rosary of Saint Peter Martyr, Manresa, which he used as a prototype over the years when undertaking other, less important commissions.