Victoria Cirlot (Barcelona, 1955), full professor of Romance Languages at Department of Humanities and current Director of the University Institute of Culture (IUC) at UPF, is an expert in the culture of chivalry and mysticism of the Middle Ages. She is co-author of Barcelona gòtica, which focuses on the Gothic heritage that can be found in the Catalan capital, principally dating from the 14 ^th and 15 ^th centuries.

The publication, co-edited in 2014 by Barcelona City Council and Triangle Postals in three languages -Spanish, English and Catalan, was written by the UPF lecturer in conjunction with Doctor in the History of Art, Raimon Arola, a lecturer of the University of Barcelona and an expert on sacred symbolism. It includes photographs by Pere Vivas, a specialist in architecture and heritage.

The book is broken down into three basic aspects of the Catalan Gothic: The first part deals with religious spaces, such as the Cathedral, Santa Maria del Mar and Santa Maria del Pi; the second part offers the reader a stroll within the walls of some of the Gothic palaces that are still preserved in the city, such as the Royal Palace and the Palace of the Generalitat, and the last takes care of monasteries, concentrating on the Pedralbes monastery.

-    The University Institute of Culture works in an interdisciplinary way between the different humanistic facets and cultures. Is this approach essential in the world we live in?

Knowledge cannot be fragmented. But of course that does not mean that research has to cover everything. Specialization in the academic and university world arose due to a clear awareness that it is impossible to possess a global knowledge. However, I think it is increasingly clear that specialization was not the solution, as it has in many cases led to short-sightedness and ignorance. Interdisciplinariety does not presume absolute knowledge, but rather the relationship between various fields, such as art and literature, literature and philosophy, anthropology and history, etc., on the basis of specific elements of each of these areas. The idea is primarily to develop the ability to relate many different aspects, since creation is derived from making such connections. To combine is to create. And there is a need to get started with the art of combinations. The intention is to recover something lost that in traditional cultures was activated through analogical thought and continued alive in its own way during the Illustration that, for example, did not stop building bridges between the arts and the sciences.

"On the one hand, humanistic culture generates fascination, and on the other, contempt".

-How would you assess the Humanities in the current educational and University context?

My answer will seem contradictory and paradoxical, but I think it's like this: on the one hand, humanistic culture generates fascination, and on the other hand, contempt. Fascination comes from the fact that the best answers to the enigmas of existence and of life are provided by a philosophical treatise, a poem, a painting, a piece of music, an essay. I don't think there's any doubt about that. But, at the same time, in a world like ours which is dominated by quantity, interests and profits, humanistic culture is a provocation for its gratuitousness.

-What is the main goal of the book Barcelona gòtica?

Barcelona gòtica came about from the need to show a Barcelona, I wouldn't say unknown, but greatly forgotten by us, the inhabitants of the city. In our city there are veritable gems that are not found only in museums (I refer to the MNAC, especially), but in the street. It's a book that aims to draw the attention of passers-by to these sculptures, paintings, architecture, that deserves a careful look.

-The book takes a "symbolic look" at the works of Gothic Barcelona. What does that mean?

A symbolic look is an attentive look, that is to say, one that reveals the meanings of the work. In the Middle Ages art did not seek to produce an aesthetic experience, but a religious experience, and rather than aesthetic pleasure, what was expected of the viewer is that s/he might understand the work. What was at stake was the intelligibility of the art, far more than its enjoyment through the senses. In the book, Raimon Arola and I have tried to restore something of the original senses of the works we select as representative of the Barcelona Gothic.

-What attitude should the viewer take when she comes across the Gothic works and buildings you feature in the book?

That I cannot decide. But the book aims to map Gothic Barcelona and suggest where the reader should pause.  The text aims to focus his/her gaze. The photos by Pere Vivas ostensibly show what distance sometimes prevents seeing in detail. But in any case, the book aims to incite Barcelona residents and visitors to the city on their walks to direct their gaze upwards, towards the keystones, for example, and renew their gaze by having pointed out forgotten and lost meanings.

"The book aims to map Gothic Barcelona and suggest where the reader should pause".

-Is it difficult to distinguish 14 ^th-15 ^th century Gothic from the Neo-Gothic of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which are so mixed up in Barcelona?

Yes, sometimes it is not easy to distinguish the Gothic from the Neo-Gothic in Barcelona. But we were concerned that the book should include only Gothic Barcelona. In any case, this is not an issue that has been studied, but has merely been a selection criterion and we have resorted to the history of art which has studied it sufficiently in excellent works.

-Do you think that there is a lot of Gothic that is unknown to the general public in the city? What works would you highlight?

Who in Barcelona has seen the sword of Peter, the Constable of Portugal? Who has been to Dalmases Chapel and seen the concert of its angels? Who remembers to look up when going down carrer del Bisbe to take in Pere Joan's Saint George? And no matter how often we pass Santa Maria del Mar, who has really seen its rose window? And we could go on. There are, indeed, pieces that are really quite unknown or known only by scholars, but mostly it is a problem of neglect that this book would seek to amend.

-Are the best known Gothic buildings in fact the ones with the greatest artistic value?

Gothic architecture is undoubtedly the best known aspect of Gothic Barcelona. Regardless of their artistic quality, it's impossible to pass by Santa Maria del Mar or the Cathedral and pretend that they are not there! But all of us are always in a hurry. And sometimes it could be good to enter Santa Maria del Mar and behold the light coming through the rose window making the stone of its walls almost transparent.

-You are an expert on the Grail and have recently published the work Grail. Poetics and Myth (12-15 ^th C), published by Editorial Siruela. Is there any element in Barcelona gòtica that refers to this myth?

The book that has just come out is the result of many years of teaching, and specifically the subject of Comparative Literature here at UPF, plus the last three years of intense research. In this book I wanted to show how the myth of the Grail was built in Europe, both from the texts and the images that accompany these texts in the manuscripts. The period during which the myth was built was put at between 1180 and 1230. This was the great age of the most innovative texts, those of Chrétien de Troyes, Robert de Boron, and other anonymous authors, such as the author of la Queste del Saint Graal (the Quest of the Holy Grail), texts that were copied in the last centuries of the medieval era illustrated in large manuscripts that formed the first secular European libraries. It is precisely in this novel in prose, la Queste del Saint Graal, dated around 1230, and translated into Catalan in the fourteenth century (Storia del Sant Grasal) that we find the legend of the tree of life with the wood from which the cross on which Christ died was made. This legend can be seen in some of the capitals of the cloister of the cathedral of Barcelona with the help of binoculars, and in greater comfort through the pictures by Pere Vivas in Barcelona gòtica.