The Església cristiana catòlica de Santa Maria de Girona (Cathedral of Saint Mary) is the cathedral church of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Girona.
A primitive Christian church existed here before the Islamic conquest of Iberia, after which it was converted into a mosque in 717. The Franks reconquered the city in 785 under Charlemagne, and the church was reconsecrated in 908.
In 1015 the church was in poor conditions, bishop Peter Roger, son of count Roger I of Carcassonne, restored it with the money obtained by selling the church of St. Daniel to his brother-in-law, count Ramon Borrell of Barcelona. The church and its cloister were built until 1064, in Romanesque style. The bell tower was completed in 1117.
The complex was redesigned by Pere Sacoma in 1312. After a few years of dubitation, Guillem Bofill and Antoni Canet restarted the project in 1416. The new design consisted of a big Gothic nave, the widest Gothic nave in the world - 22.98 meters (72 ft) - and the second widest nave of all styles after St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. The elevation is 35 metres (115 ft).
The church has a Baroque façade (begun in 1606, finished in 1961), preceded by a staircase completed in 1607. The sculptures decorating the three orders of the façade were executed by local sculptors in the 1960s.
The cathedral is listed as a Site of Cultural Interest in the monument category since 1931.
from: wikipedia