Montjuïc Castle’s dungeons have over 650 graffiti etched on their walls by prisoners. Thanks to the documenting done so far in dungeons 3 and 4, we now have a record of daily life for prisoners in those confines, as well as the experiences of a diverse range of prisoners and historical periods, from the last third of the 19th century up to the final stages of the Spanish Civil War. A journey through Barcelona, and the world, over the last 150 years.
7 am Reveille
10.30 am Toilet
11.30 am Water
1 pm Bread and Grub
3.30 pm Toilet
4 pm Water
5.30 pm Toilet
7.30 pm Toilet
10 pm Silence
10.30 am Toilet
11.30 am Water
1 pm Bread and Grub
3.30 pm Toilet
4 pm Water
5.30 pm Toilet
7.30 pm Toilet
10 pm Silence
An illustrative text of a day in the life of a prisoner. Endless waiting while rotting away in one of these cells in Montjuïc Castle. A small excerpt which, alongside the other graffiti found so far, is helping us to re-create part of the long history of the castle and, by extension, the city and the country.It was most probably used as a prison following the construction of the new castle in the 18th century. Its cells are located beneath the parade ground’s south-east halls, some 180 metres above sea level, halfway between the old barracks and the parade ground. They consist of five rooms, 4.9 metres wide and 6.9 metres long, connected by a 1.6 metre wide corridor, remnants of the fortress that used to occupy the site of the current castle.
The castle’s recent remodelling (2014-2017) and mandatory archaeological exploration led to the discovery of graffiti all around these spaces. The recovery, conservation and restoration project which started back in 2015 uncovered a large number of graffiti all around the cells and access corridors. A study of the compound’s features enables us to date the graffiti back to three distinct periods: the oldest going back to the last third of the 19th century; the middle from 1900 to 1925, and the most recent, from 1935 to 1940, including the entire stage of the Spanish Civil War.
Numerous prisoners were transferred to Montjuïc Castle’s dungeons following the demolition of the Ciutadella fortress in 1870. Political and military prisoners were held here, whose testimonies we can now recover by examining the messages which have been preserved, whether as texts or drawings, on the surfaces of the cell walls: the attack of 1896 against the Corpus Christi procession; Tragic Week; the Canadenca general strike; the Spanish Civil War and the later post-war period are just a few of the historical events that have left their mark on these dungeons.
“Graffiti” are inscriptions, drawings or paintings made on a wall or monument, among other things. The graffiti discovered on Montjuïc were mostly made by pencil, although we can also find engravings, carved out with the point of some kind of tool. The graffiti discovered so far correspond to three cells, each with an approximate area of 17 linear metres along a roughly 1.20 metre-wide strip. The graffiti reach a maximum height of 1.9 metres, arising from an average height of 0.70 metres off the ground.
The graphic features discovered – counted, as mentioned above, up to over 650 – are now presented in a database on this website which can be consulted and studied in greater detail. They have all been documented descriptively and with photos, and can be searched by chronology, subject or technique.