Sean Scully Art Space
Santa Cecilia of Montserrat,
and Beyond the Pale

Santa Cecilia de Montserrat is a place imbued with deep spiritual, historical and artistic significance. It was founded more than one thousand years ago, during the creation of Carolingian Catalonia. After the restoration of the Romanesque church by Barcelona Provincial Council (between 2013 and 2015), Sean Scully started to decorate the interior. Thanks to his artistic intervention, the church has become an important example of the intersection between Christianity and genuine avant-garde art.

The Benedictine community of Montserrat wishes you a pleasant and fruitful visit to this emblematic site.

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The idiom “beyond the pale” means behavior or actions that are totally unacceptable, intolerable, or outside the bounds of morality, good judgment, or social convention. [1, 2]

Etymology

A “pale” comes from the Latin word palum, meaning a pointed wooden stake used to build a fence or boundary marker.Historically, “the Pale” referred to specific enclosed territories—most famously the English Pale in medieval Ireland or the Pale of Settlement in the Russian Empire. People living within the pale were protected by law and civilization, while going beyond the pale meant entering the lawless, unsafe wilderness. Therefore, to be “beyond the pale” metaphorically describes someone who has crossed the line of acceptable conduct