Tarragona

That recovery was carried on by the archbishops themselves. In the 16th century, holding high office in the state as well as the see, they gave Tarragona a university, pushed its walls outward and filled the cathedral with new chapels. The sea and sickness kept undoing their work: pirate raids forced the town to raise watchtowers along the coast, and plague in 1589 and again in 1650 sent its people fleeing inland. The heaviest blow was the Reapers' War, when the city was besieged in 1641 and again in 1644. Its harbour was wrecked and left derelict for years while trade moved to nearby Salou, and Tarragona only revived late in the 18th century, when the crown at last let it rebuild the port and trade freely with America.