Five or six miles farther down the valley stands Ripoll, one of the towns that suffered most severely during the Carlist wars. It has, however, long since recovered from its reverses. Unfortunately the damage done to the monastery founded by Wilfred the Hairy cannot be repaired. As the Mausoleum of the counts from the ninth to the twelfth century, it possessed great interest. The church, built by Bishop Oliva about the thousandth year of our era, is roofless. The nave terminates in an apse, and there are three smaller apses opening from the east into each transept. The special glory of the building is its west porch, formed by a rounded arch with three shafts in each jamb. The middle shafts are carved into life-size figures of St. Peter and St. Paul; the others are most beautifully chiselled. The orders of the arch are variously treated; caprices, grotesques, masques, mythological designs being interwoven with more appropriate religious symbols. One series of reliefs appears to represent the twelve months. The façade on either side of this portal is similarly decorated with graphic reliefs in six courses, the lowest representing scenes in which centaurs, lions, &c., figure; above this is a row of figures of knights, princes, and prelates; above this, battle scenes, then come two rows of sacred figures and subjects, and finally the figure of God the Father attended by angels and princes. The whole of this portal is of profound interest to students of the Romanesque. The interior of the church was restored as lately as twenty years ago. All styles seem to have entered into its architecture. Instead of columns, massive piers support the vaulting, and mark off the aisles from the nave. The chancel--merely a shallow apsidal prolongation of the nave--is strewn with the ruins of the high altar and the roof. The cloister of the monastery is the most interesting part. It is composed of an upper and lower gallery of round arches, uninterrupted by any piers or buttresses. The harmony of the whole is admirable. The columns are of Gerona marble, and pinkish grey in hue. Variety is imparted by the capitals whereon the unknown sculptor has expended his fanciful, nervous genius. The upper gallery was not completed till the end of the fourteenth century, though the cloister had been begun as far back as 1172.