Játiva

Játiva, or Xàtiva, became one of the leading towns of the Kingdom of Valencia after James I conquered it in 1244, respecting its mosque and making it the capital of the district south of the Xúquer, as the Júcar is called in Valencian. In 1250 he gave it the right to hold a trade fair. Peter IV granted Xàtiva city status and a royal banner in 1347 for its loyalty to the king in the War of the Union. Its castle on the ridge above the town was the state prison of the kings of Aragon, and the Borja family, from Xàtiva, gave the church two popes, Calixtus III and Alexander VI.

The painter José de Ribera, born here in 1591, made his career in Naples. The expulsion of the Moriscos in 1609 and the plague of 1645 hit the town hard. In the War of the Spanish Succession, Xàtiva held for the Habsburg claimant, and in 1707 Philip V's troops burned it and renamed it San Felipe.