Ramon Montaner, Lluís Domènech's uncle and co-owner of the Montaner i Simón publishing house, bought the Casa Forta in Canet in 1881, thus returning the property to his family. He commissioned his nephew to restore and extend the building in order to monumentalise it and turn it into a representation of his lineage.
With this intention, the publisher had acquired several historical buildings to extract their architectural elements of value and transfer them to his castle, such as the medieval monastery of Tallat.
The original building was an old domus, the Casa Forta de Canet de Mar, which before the intervention had the appearance of a compact fortified country house.
Domènech's project consisted of building new rooms around a courtyard that recreated a castle, reusing stone elements from other medieval buildings.
From the monastery of Tallat, Ramon Montaner bought a large part of the cloister and several window and door frames, which were drawn, numbered piece by piece, dismantled and transferred to Sant Florentina, where they were reassembled in their new location.
The new courtyard had a monumental exterior staircase in the style of Gothic palaces, and the towers were topped with battlements, barbicans and machicolations.
The complex has many stone sculptures, decorated corbels, sculpted gargoyles, medievalist stained glass windows, polychrome wooden coffered ceilings and antique furniture, in which original Gothic pieces were mixed with modern fragments to achieve a medieval fantasy.
Antoni Samarra i Tugues, Carles Flotats i Galtés and Dídac Massana collaborated on the stone sculptures and Josep Pujol on the stained glass windows.
In 1905 work began on the crypt, in the basement of one of the old towers of the fortress, for the late wife of Ramon Montaner, Florentina Malató.
In 1908, with the renovation of the castle almost finished, King Alfonso XIII was there, the same year that he granted Ramon Montaner the title of Count of the Canet Valley.
The Montaner family ruled the castle until the marriage of their daughter Julia passed to the Capmany family. It is currently owned by investors and although it is still used as a private home, it is a museum and can be visited.
