The 16th-century portal of Capella de la Sang

The Capella de la Sang is a monument in Lleida protected as a cultural asset of national interest. While the architect Agàpit Lamarca renovated the majority of the buildings in the 19th century in a neoclassical style, the most relevant feature is the Renaissance portal on the side wall. Probably dating from the second quarter of the 16th century, the work is attributed to Gil de Morlanes, a collaborator of Damià Forment.

The portal is composed of two bodies. The lower body contains a semi-circular arch between two attached pilasters, decorated with grotesques and ornamental bands with trophies. A coat of arms at the keystone of the arch, medallions with little angels at the corners, and a geometric molding following the arch complete the decoration. The upper body consists of three niches separated by pilasters, which once contained statues of saints, according to early 20th-century photographs. Above, a triangular pediment houses the half-length figure of Déu Pare. Zoomorphic volutes facilitate the transition between the different widths of the two superimposed levels.

This Lleida work is part of a group of Catalan portals of the same type as those of the capular frontispiece and Santa Maria la Vella, the cloister of the Seu Vella de Lleida, those of the Reials Col·legis de Tortosa, and that of Sarroca de Segrià, which convey models of Castilian-Aragonese ancestry.

The Congregation of the Puríssima Sang acquired the church of the convent of the hospitalers of Sant Antoni de Vienne in 1803. This mendicant hospitaler order established itself in Lleida at the end of the 13th century, using the buildings of a hospital founded at the beginning of the same century by Pere de Déu. Located outside the walls at the foot of the Gardeny hill, it was later included within the walls in 1483. The hospitalers resided there until 1788, the year the Institute was extinguished.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons