Contribution to Acquire Information about Monastery Interiors: “Are these Monks´ Cells or Merchants Markets?”

Abstract

This paper studies the interior decoration of the Benedictine cells in Spain during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This research is based on the analysis of some letters written by the so-called visitor monks of the Order of Saint Benedict who collected comments on lifestyle and the religious observance which was followed inside the monasteries. We have examined these epistles to find references that can allow us to know how the ornamentation, furniture and objects placed in the private rooms were. The data that we have located show how the Benedictines were surrounded by sumptuous furnishings with which they flaunted their Baroque lifestyle, from luxurious furnishings that moved them away from their original monastic poverty and simplicity, linking them to both fashion and the aesthetics of their time.