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The Cathedral of Santa María is a cathedral built in the early Gothic style, existing in the city and province of Tarragona, in the autonomous community of Catalonia, Spain. It is located in the highest part of Tarragona, on a site that previously occupied a temple dedicated to the Roman imperial cult (the temple of Augustus), a Visigothic cathedral and an Arab mosque.



In its current state corresponds to the period of transition between Romanesque and Gothic.



On April 3, 1905, it was declared a National Monument.



Installed since 1914 in some rooms of the cloister, it was formed by the collection of Archbishop Tomàs Costa i Formaguera, donations from parishes of the diocese of private individuals, with objects from the Seminary and from the old Santa Tecla chapel in which they kept pieces gathered from the confiscation. It remained closed to find the facilities in poor condition from 1973 to 1992 that were restored.



Its collection consists of some six thousand pieces of which some three hundred and fifty are shown.



     An important collection of Roman archaeological pieces, many from excavations carried out in the cathedral, cloister and adjacent gardens, such as the sarcophagus of Apollo and the nine Muses from the beginning of the 3rd century AD. C., that was in the pavement of the apse of the chapel of Corpus Christi.

     From the Muslim period, there are fragments of tissue found in the sepulcher of Archbishop Pere de Cardona (1515-1530), who was chancellor of King Ferdinand I of Aragon and accompanied him in the conquest of Granada.

     It is kept in the garden in front of the chapel of Santa Tecla la Antigua, a gothic cross of the Castle of Tamarit, made in porphyry and marble on a pedestal built by a small Roman funerary stele (cippus).

     Among the sculpture is the Virgen del Truc, from the parish church of Vinaixa sculptor Guillem Seguer, as well as various images of polychrome carving representing Virgins of the twelfth to fourteenth of the churches of Solivella, and Vilafortuny.

     The painting has a large space spanning the Gothic, Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque periods.

     Goldsmithing, manuscripts, songs, liturgical furniture are part of the museum's heritage.

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