Puig de Missa de Santa Eulària
In the so-called quartó de Xarc during the Arab period (already since 1303 we find references under the name of Santa Eulària), around a well-populated area with water wells, there is a mountain topped today with a church dedicated to this saint from Barcelona, Santa Eulària.
The Puig de Missa of Santa Eulària was declared National Scenic Site by decree on August 4, 1952. It was later classified as a Place of Cultural Interest under the category of historical place, both for the church with its defense tower and for the mount-church ensemble. Although there are records of an old chapel, the current church was opened in 1568 as a vicarage dependent from Santa María parish. The porches and side chapels date back from the 17th century. At first, in addition to the high altar, the church had four altars dedicated to the Virgin of the Rosary, the Virgin of Mount Carmel, Saint Anthony the Abbot, and the Saint Physicians Cosmas and Damian. In 1760, three chapels or altars dedicated to the Virgin of Bethlehem and the Holy Trinity are found. The two chapels closest to the chancel are deep and stick out from the master walls. The via crucis, from side to side of the nave, is paved with artistic tiles from Valencia.
In 1785, the first bishop of Ibiza, Manuel Abad y Lasierra, transformed the church of Santa Eulària into a parish. The Baroque altarpiece that presides the high altar is from sculptor José Ferreres, made between 1674 and 1678, and it was brought from San Millán (Segovia) in 1967, upon the initiative of Marquis of Lozoya, owner of a rural house within the very Puig de Missa, since he knew that the old altarpiece from the 17th century had been destroyed in 1936. The altarpiece has one body with a single panel, attic, and bench or predella, all of it of golden polychromatic wood. The body has four Solomonic columns, and in the center, there is a niche that holds a polychromatic wooden carved image representing Santa Eulària, made approximately in 1940 by Valencian carvers Carlos Román and Vicente Salvador. Over the cornice, in the attic, there is a cloth that represents Saint Rose of Lima, made in Cuzco school in the 18th century. It comes from El Convent de Dalt Vila church. Ibiza and Formentera's Insular Ministry of Heritage restored this altarpiece and its tabernacle where the Host is exhibited. It used to be where the priest’s seat was, which is currently found within the side chapel of the Holy Sacrament. Opposite to the church, we come across the Barrau House-Museum, where we will be able to enjoy a marvelous collection of more than a hundred pieces of art made with different techniques (oil, watercolor, etching, and drawing) that Berta Ballori, the painter’s widow, wanted to donate to the Ibizan diocese.
Catalan painter Laureà Barrau (Barcelona, 1863 - Santa Eulària des Riu, 1957), moved around several places: Barcelona, Madrid, Rome, and Paris. Finally, he settled in Caldes d'Estrac town, which qualified under the criteria he was looking for regarding light capturing. This was the reason that later on made him settle in Ibiza, around 1930, specifically in the house that holds his work today. Here, he felt quite enthusiastic and he left paintings that stand out for their color, composition, and expression of the human figures. Barraus paintings capture the light, landscape, streets, markets, and the people from Ibiza – this is why he was branded as an Ibizan painter. In Puig de Missa we can also find Can Ross, the peasant house that holds Ibiza’s Ethnographic Museum, with an important museographic collection of objects of the traditional Pityusic rural environment: clothing, jewelry, musical instruments, household tools, agriculture tools, fittings, pottery… All of it is set within a framework of a house that is a good example of the traditional Pityusic architecture.
Contenido cedido por Ibiza.travel