The Roman temple of Vic, dating from the 1st–2nd centuries A.D., is located on the upper part of the city, next to the Church of La Pietat and within the remains of the old Montcada Castle.
The temple’s cella measures externally 12.10 × 10.10 meters. The columned portico and the cella are built on the temple’s podium, which is accessed by a staircase situated in front of the eastern façade. Judging by the surviving fragments, the columns were smooth, with Ionic bases and Corinthian capitals. The cella walls are made of large squared stone blocks at the corners, while the other sections are built with smaller stone blocks. The entire cella is topped by a complete Ionic entablature — architrave, frieze, and cornice — carved from large stone blocks.
Beneath the cella, within the body of the podium, lies another chamber of the same dimensions, containing a well that may date back to Roman times. This well later served as the central courtyard well of the Montcada Castle, when the current wellhead was added. The chamber was later used as the headquarters of the Centre Excursionista de Vic (Vic Hiking Club) and as a storage room.
The temple belonged to the Roman city of Auso, which was probably founded in the 1st century A.D. It is not certain whether an Iberian settlement existed there earlier.
The temple was built between the final decades of the 1st century and the first quarter of the 2nd century A.D., as suggested by archaeological excavations.
Its existence was completely unknown until 1882, when it was discovered during the demolition of the old Montcada Castle, which had been used as a prison. The three preserved walls of the cella (the eastern one had disappeared) had served as interior walls of the castle.
A group of prominent townsmen, especially Josep Serra i Campdelacreu, the municipal archivist, recognising the monument’s value, purchased the site and swiftly began its restoration.
The cella and its roof were rebuilt, the missing façade wall was reconstructed, and — based on the single surviving capital found in the northeastern corner and the measurements taken from a recovered column shaft fragment — the front colonnade was reconstructed. Finally, in 1959, the triangular pediment crowning the colonnade was completed.
The monument is currently used as a cultural center.
Recent excavations have established the dimensions of the peribolus or sacred courtyard that surrounded the temple.
The roof has also been recently restored.