The Shoe Museum | Barcelona

On the delightful Plaça Sant Felip Neri you’ll find the small, easily missed Museu del Calçat (Shoe Museum). It’s a slightly ramshackle museum, but a charming one, displaying reproductions of shoes from Roman times up to the 18th century and original shoes from 1700 to the present day.

There’s a section devoted to famous people, where you can see footwear that belonged to the likes of Charlie Rivel, Ronaldinho, Jordi Pujol and Pau Casals, among others.

The building didn’t originally stand on this square: it faced the cathedral and was the headquarters of the Shoemakers’ Guild, built in 1565. During the Civil War the whole area opposite the cathedral was devastated by bombing, and Barcelona City Council took the opportunity to build Avinguda de la Catedral. It kept the only building left intact and, years later, moved it to where it stands today.

But the story goes back further. It was in 1202 that Barcelona’s shoemakers formed a guild and founded the Confraternity of St Mark the Evangelist, the oldest confraternity in Europe. And from then until today, four books have kept a yearly record of everyone who has been a member.

Today the museum occupies the ground floor of what was once this guild’s building, and the upper floor is taken up by a children’s school. On the façade you can see the guild’s coat of arms, which features a lion representing St Mark the Evangelist. He was chosen as the confraternity’s patron saint because, at the time, people talked a great deal about an episode from the early years of the spread of Christ’s teachings that directly involved a shoemaker (Anianus), who would go on to become a saint, and in which the Evangelist himself played the leading role.

One curious exhibit is the 112 cm shoe last that was used as a mould to make the feet of the Columbus statue, and which also served to work out the statue’s height. This last was used to make a pair of giant merceditas (Mary Jane shoes), which are in the museum too.

Address: Plaça Sant Felip Neri 6, 08002 Barcelona

Phone: 933 014 533

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