Xativa History. History of Xativa
Xàtiva is a town in eastern Spain, in the province of Valencia, on the right bank of the river Albaida and at the junction of the Valencia–Murcia and Valencia Albacete railways.
Xàtiva is built on the margin of a fertile and beautiful plain, and on the southern slopes of the Monte Bernisa, a hill with two peaks, each surmounted by a Castle of Játiva. With its numerous fountains, and spacious avenues
shaded with elms or cypresses, the town has a clean and attractive appearance. Its collegiate church, dating from 1414, but rebuilt about a century later in the Renaissance style, was formerly a cathedral, and is the
chief among many churches and convents. The town-hall and a church on the castle hill are partly constructed of inscribed Roman masonry, and several houses date from the Moorish period. There is a brisk local trade in grain, fruit, wine, olive oil and rice.
Xàtiva (Saetabis in latin) was famous in Roman times for its silk fabrics, mentioned by the Latin poet Ovid. Xàtiva is also known as an early European centre of paper manufacture. In the twelfth century, Arabs brought the technology to manufacture paper to Xàtiva.
Birthplace of two popes, Callixtus III and Alexander VI, as well as the painter José Ribera spagnoletto, it suffered a dark moment in its history at the hands of Philip V of Spain, who, after his victory in the Battle of
Almansa in the War of the Spanish Succession, ordered the city to be burned, changing its name to San Felipe. In memory of the insult, the portrait of the monarch hangs upside down in the local museum of L'Almodí.
Xàtiva was briefly a provincial capital under the shortlived 1822 territorial division of Spain, during the Trienio Liberal. The Province of Játiva was revoked with the return to absolutism in 1823.
Hannibal is said to have watered his elephants in the town during his epic journey and two Borja popes were born in the castle there - Calixtus lll and Alexander VI.
