The columns in the façade of the Palau de la Generalitat (the seat of the Government of Catalonia) in Barcelona come from Troy, the ancient Greek city in modern-day Turkey.
In the 2nd century AD, between 45 and 50 columns were sculpted in Troy and taken to Tarraco (nowadays called Tarragona), to prepare the city for the stay of the Roman emperror Hadrian. The Trojan columns were used for the city’s provincial forum, probably in the temple to Augustus.
After the fall of the Roman empire, many of those columns disappeared, but many others were reused to build a church in the area of Sant Pere Sescelades a few kilometres north of Tarraco, which doesn’t exit anymore.
In the 16th century, the Palau de la Generalitat was being reformed and its architect asked for 4 of those columns. These four huge columns were taken by sea to Barcelona, and since then have been at the entrance of the building.
In Tarragona, some other Trojan columns can still be seen in the archaeological area, where the Forum used to be, and parts of columns can be seen as decorative elements of houses or used as flower-beds.
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