Xativa Castle

[3] The fortress is strategically located on the ancient roadway Via Augusta leading from Rome across the Pyrenees and down the Mediterranean coast to Cartagena and Cádiz.

It is said to be the place where Hannibal planned the conquest of the Roman city of Saguntum, as well as where his son was born in 218 BC.

King James I of Aragon began his religious conquest there in the summer of 1239, capturing Xátiva on 22 May 1244, following a five-month siege.

After the two years had elapsed, King James I of Aragon forcibly repopulated a large part of the town with Catalan and Aragonese settlers, meanwhile slaughtering and expelling a portion of the Muslim and Jewish populations from the city.

In the subsequent decades, many Mudéjar (Muslims living under Christian rule after the Reconquista) left the region for Granada or North Africa.