| Xàtiva | |||
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| — Municipality — | |||
| Xàtiva | |||
| View of Xàtiva | |||
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Xàtiva
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| Coordinates: | |||
| Country | Spain | ||
| Autonomous community | Valencian Community | ||
| Province | Valencia | ||
| Comarca | Costera | ||
| Judicial district | Xàtiva | ||
| Government | |||
| • Mayor | Alfonso Rus Terol (2007) (PP) | ||
| Area | |||
| • Total | 76.60 km2 (29.6 sq mi) | ||
| Elevation | 115 m (377 ft) | ||
| Population (2009) | |||
| • Total | 29,386 | ||
| • Density | 383.6/km2 (993.6/sq mi) | ||
| Demonym | Setabense | ||
| Time zone | CET (UTC+1) | ||
| • Summer (DST) | CEST (UTC+2) | ||
| Postal code | 46800 | ||
| Official language(s) | Valencian | ||
| Website | Official website | ||
Xàtiva (Valencian pronunciation: [ˈʃativa], Spanish: Játiva) is a town in eastern Spain, in the province of Valencia, on the right (western) bank of the river Albaida and at the junction of the Valencia–Murcia and Valencia Albacete railways.
There is a brisk local trade in grain, fruit, wine, olive oil and rice.
The leading local football club is CD Olimpic Xàtiva.
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Xàtiva (Saetabis in Latin) was famous in Roman times for its silk fabrics, mentioned by the Latin poets Ovid and Catullus. Xàtiva is also known as an early European center of paper manufacture. In the 12th century, Arabs brought the technology to manufacture paper to Xàtiva.
It is the birthplace of two popes, Callixtus III and Alexander VI, and also 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. The name was changed to San Felipe. In memory of the insult, the portrait of the monarch hangs upside down in the local museum of L'Almodí.[1]
Xàtiva was briefly a provincial capital under the shortlived 1822 territorial division of Spain,[2] during the Trienio Liberal. The Province of Játiva was revoked with the return to absolutism in 1823.
Xàtiva is built on the margin of a fertile plain, and on the southern slopes of the Monte Bernisa, a hill with two peaks, each surmounted by a Castle of Xàtiva.
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.
Other sights include:
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
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