Santa Maria d'Amer, Monastery in Amer

Santa Maria d'Amer is a church building with a basilica plan featuring a barrel-vaulted nave and a semicircular apse at the east end. The interior shows a simple, solid space with pillars of different periods and windows that reveal centuries of repairs and modifications to its structure.

Records first appear in 844, with the foundation dating to around 820 by Abbot Deodat. The community relocated to Amer between 935 and 940 and was formally dedicated in 949 by Bishop Gotmar II of Girona.

The monastery was a center of prayer and learning where monks copied books and engaged with the surrounding community. Over time it accumulated land and resources through donations, becoming deeply woven into local life and decision-making.

The monastery complex stands in the centre of Amer, in the comarca of La Selva. The monastic enclosure is well preserved, and several former monastic buildings now serve other purposes: the major sacristan's house is an ethnographic museum and the Abbot's Palace a dispensary. The church preserves two 11th-century capitals in the sacristy.

The bell tower dates from 1900 and stands on the site of a Romanesque predecessor, demolished on 10 February 1657 when troops of Philip IV entered the monastery during the Reapers' War. Of the cloister, destroyed by the earthquakes of 1427, two 11th-century capitals survive in the church sacristy: one carved with geometric motifs, the other with four faces.