Barcelona, ​​shocked by the constant pest plagues of the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, declared Sant Roc as the patron of the City in 1519. In 1563 the “Consell de Cent” of Barcelona gave the city vow to Sant Roc, renewed in 1569, with the commitment to celebrate its feast with the corporate courtship, its own mass at Santa Eulàlia del Camp and other solemnities.

In 1589, the residents of the neighborhood of the Cathedral of Barcelona, ​​in gratitude for having been preserved from the terrible bubonic plague of that year, constituted the Brotherhood of Sant Roc of Plassa Nova and since that same year they celebrate a feast in his honor. Thus was born a celebration that would last to this day and that have become the oldest popular street feast and of the city.

Neighbors and traders of the Plaça Nova -the vital, commercial and social centre of the Catedral Quarter- would continue and enrich this tradition over four centuries and a quarter, constituted as the Feast Committee of Sant Roc of Plaça Nova, despite having to overcome all kinds of difficulties and conflicts, even the near destruction of the neighborhood an the forced diaspora of many of its residents.

Having overcome the urban transformation of the neighborhood and its dramatic consequences, the Feast of Sant Roc enters the twenty-first century, with the help of the Feast Association of Plaça Novga, one of the oldest and most unique traditions of Barcelona.

This exhibition is the story of several women and men, of a neighborhood and a city that, around Sant Roc and the Plaça Nova, have lived an incomparable adventure that has lasted 4 ¼ centuries.

Parts of the exhibition:

The vow feasts –  From town vow to popular feast

Glorious Sant Roc! – Feast of Sant Roc in the Catalan countries

The city vow – Sant Roc, patron of Barcelona, chapels and shrines

The feast in times of conflict: seventeenth and eighteenth centúries – The Brotherhood of Sant Roc of Plassa Nova, 1589: a feast is born

The popular feast: 1794-1883 – The Cathedral Quarter: Plaça Nova and surrounding streets

The neighborhood feast: 1884-1902 – Neighbors, traders and feast committees

The modern feast: 1903-1935 (I) – The Feast of Sant Roc of Plaça Nova, a great push forward

The modern feast: 1903-1935 (II) – Traditional and unique elements of Sant Roc of Plaça Nova

Feast, power and religion: 1936-1950 – Sant Roc, Civil War and Guerra Civil and postwar period

Feast and urbanism: 1951-1958 – A neighborhood that disappears, the diaspora of the neighbors

Feast and social cohesion: 1951-1958 – Sant Roc and the Feats Committee, the bonds between neighbors and old residents

The Feast at Plaça Nova: 1959-1981 – In search of the lost neighborhood!

Feast, democracy and popular culture: 1982-2000 – Sant Roc, the renewed feast

The Feast of today: 2001-2014 – Sant Roc, a tradition of Barcelona