Discover Peñiscola
History of Peñiscola
The history
Peñíscola, hospitable city, has been a crossroads of all the Mediterranean civilizations that from the dawn of the history come sailing along this sea of prosperity and culture. Phoenicians and Greeks, were followed by Carthaginians, Romans, Byzantine and Arabic... They knew All of his profitable situation, of his safety as uncompromising strength and of his suitability as habitat, so much for his climate as for having abundant sweet water that springs from the entrails of the rock in the own citadel.
Knights Templar
In time already of the Christians, the mythical and enigmatic Gentlemen Templars settled themselves in the tómbolo, where already an Arabic strength existed and were not late in be persuading of the exceptional characteristics that it was assembling to be turned into impregnable strength.
Between the year 1294 and 1307 Templar was constructed the current castle on the remains of the Arabic fort. The promoters were frey Berenguer de Cardona, which was the Master of the Order of the Temperature in Aragon and Catalonia and frey Arnaldo de Banyuls, who was the commander of Peñíscola. The shields of both remain esculpidos in stone forming heraldic strips placed over the door of access to the castle and also on the door of the basilica.
National Historic-Artistic Monument
The exceptional hardiness of his walls and vaults of arch lightly pointed and his total construction with magnificent factory of chairs, as well as his nudity and austerity in ornamental elements constitute the stamp of a military tremendously massive and sober architecture that, stylistically, passes between the Romanesque late one and an incipient Gothic. Peñíscola's Castle is catalogued as Historical - artistic National Monument, distinction that was granted him in 1922. Nevertheless up to the decade of the 60 a regular regime of visits was not established. Nowadays it is the second Monument most visited of Spain, after the Alhambra of Granada.
