Park de Montjuic
Tel. 93- 329 86 13
Subway: Parallel
Open: Tue- Sun
Closed: Jan 1, Good Friday, May 1, Dec 25- 26
First known Montjuic Fortress was built during Medieval period, although current structure that you see today was largely constructed in the 17th century with later additions. Montjuic hill holds a strategic site at an attitude of 200 meters above sea level. Catalan counts constructed a their citadel, but little remains of the original structure. The first construction that occupied the top of this mountain was a watchtower destined to inform by signals of the proximity of boats that approached the city. In 1640 , during the revolt against Philip IV (War of the Reapers), the first fortification was built in Montjuic made of earth with stone and mud cladding. This provisional fortification served to repel the assault of the Castilian troops commanded by the Marquis of los Vélez on January 26 , 1641 . The original fort was converted into a castle in 1694 . Its plant occupied all the flat part of the summit, with three bastions facing the land and a line of saw teeth looking out to sea. The small fortification that preceded it remained as an interior redoubt.
From the beginning to the 17th century
The first construction that
occupied the top of this mountain was a watchtower intended to inform by
signals of the proximity of ships approaching the city.
In 1640,
during the revolt against Philip IV, the first fortification was built
in Montjuic, built in the shape of an earth quadrilateral with stone and
mud coating. This provisional fortification served to repel the assault
of the Castilian troops commanded by the Marquis of the Vélez on January
26, 1641. The original fort became a castle in 1694. Its layout occupied
the entire flat part of the summit, with three bastions looking towards
land and a line of saw teeth looking towards the sea. The small
preceding fortification remained as an interior redoubt.
Century
XVIII
During the War of Succession, the fall of the castle into the
hands of the Duke of Peterborough, on September 17, 1705, was a factor
that influenced the Catalans to lean towards the cause of Archduke
Charles of Austria. Recovered on April 25, 1706 by Philip V, he lost it
again on May 12 of that same year, and it was not in his hands again
until September 12, 1714 when, in accordance with the fifth article of
the Capitulations that that On the same day, as the Duke of Berwick
proposed, the castle was handed over to the Bourbon troops. In 1751, the
military engineer Juan Martín Cermeño ordered the destruction of the old
fort from 1640 and finished shaping the group of buildings, providing it
with services and cisterns, one of them for drinking water, and ordered
the construction of the moat. Between 1779 and 1799, various works were
carried out, including those necessary to install twice as many men
there, as well as the construction of kitchens for 3,000 seats; The
castle then took the shape it has today. It was equipped with artillery
with a number of no less than 120 cannons.
XIX century
On
February 29, 1808, a body of Napoleon's imperial troops, commanded by
Colonel Floresti, ascended the Montjuic mountain to take possession of
the castle. He succeeded, since the captain general of Catalonia had
received orders from the court itself to peacefully receive the French
troops; they would remain occupying the castle until May 28, 1814. In
1842, during the regency of Espartero, the city of Barcelona was bombed
from this castle in order to subdue a revolt. In 1843, General Prim
ordered a new bombardment of the city. Starting at the end of the 19th
century, the castle housed the victims of both social political
repression and workers' struggle. There, the workers involved in the
wave of anarchist violence in the 1890s were imprisoned, tortured and
executed, especially the many arrested after the Corpus Christi
Procession Attack. The trial that followed the arrests, known as the
Montjuic trial, became famous for its harshness and the torture that was
carried out.
Twentieth century
The detainees were also locked
up in the castle during Tragic Week; Francisco Ferrer Guardia was shot
here. In 1919 more than 3,000 workers were imprisoned because of the
Canadian conflict. After the outbreak of the Civil War, the Popular
Front turned it into a prison and place of execution for the rebels or
sympathizers of the "national cause", making the Santa Elena Moat
famous, where soldiers, priests, conservatives, and young Falangists
were executed. , students, businessmen, requetés and all those who were
considered right-wing. In this place a Monument to the fallen was placed
after the war in memory of those who were shot. In Montjuic, General
Manuel Goded was shot, along with other rebellious soldiers, on August
12, 1936. On August 26, 1936, the Infantry Commander José López-Amor
Jiménez, Captains Enrique López Belda and Luis López Varela were shot —
regional head of the UME and true mastermind of the military uprising in
Barcelona—as well as Captain Fernando Lizcano de la Rosa, who had been
head of the Mozos de Escuadra after October 6, 1934.
During the
Franco era, more than 4,000 republican and Catalan prisoners were
executed in the castle, the best known being the president of the
Generalitat of Catalonia, Lluís Companys, on October 15, 1940. Until
1960, the year it was transferred to the city , the castle served as a
military prison. After three years of work to condition it, Franco
presided over the inauguration of the new military museum on June 24,
1963; The site was transferred to Barcelona but not the museum it
houses. In 1965, an archery range was inaugurated in the Santa Eulalia
moat.
On April 30, 2007, the President of the Government and the Mayor of
Barcelona agreed to the complete transfer of the castle, in which the
flags of Spain, Catalonia, Barcelona and the European Union should fly
and from which the antennas installed in a maximum period of three
years, also proceeding to close the military museum.
It is
planned that the site will house a Peace Center, which will be governed
by a consortium in whose constitution the Barcelona City Council, the
Ministry of Defense and the Generalitat of Catalonia will participate.5
In 2015, by virtue of the Historical Memory Law , the Barcelona City
Council prohibited celebrating the mass that had been celebrated
annually in the castle since 1940 for those who fell in the uprising of
'36, considering it an act of exaltation of the military coup.