Convent of Santa Magdalena

You begin the mystery route at the convent of Santa Magdalena, where Mallorca's best-loved saint lived and died: Catalina Thomàs, whom the whole island still calls «the Beata».

1A documented life

Catalina was born in Valldemossa in 1531 and was orphaned very young. She worked as a farmhand in her uncle's house and, thanks to a well-off Palma family, learned to read and write. At 21 she entered this convent of Augustinian canonesses and took her vows in 1555. She died here on 5 April 1574. She was beatified in 1792 and canonised in 1930.

2Ecstasies and temptations

The nuns who lived with her said she fell into ecstasies that could last a whole day, that she had visions of saints and angels and that she could foretell the future. They also left accounts of the devil tormenting her: pushing her, beating her, even throwing her into the well. These stories belong to her hagiography and to popular devotion, not to verifiable history.

What is documented is her life in the convent; the extraordinary belongs to tradition and faith.

Her body is preserved in the church, in a silver and glass urn inside a neoclassical tomb completed in 1815. Nearby, on Plaça del Mercat, a stone set against the church of Sant Nicolau is said by tradition to be where she prayed as a young woman, hoping to be admitted to a convent.

3What to look for

• The figure of Mary Magdalene holding a skull, above the door.
• The rose window and the two small towers of the façade.
• The convent wall: this is an enclosed order, and the community of nuns still lives here.