Village
Maella is a municipality of the Bajo Aragón-Caspe, in the province of Zaragoza, with 2,158 inhabitants (INE 2025) and 121 m of altitude, next to the river Matarrana, 21 km from Caspe. Its own language is the Catalan of Aragon, in the local maellano variety, with features pointing to Ribagorçan to the north and to the speech of the Guadalope to the south. Reconquered from the Muslims by Alfonso II in 1168, its castle dates from that time, and thirteen years later the king granted it a settlement charter; in 1404 and 1423 sessions of the Cortes of Aragon were held there. Its church of San Esteban, of Romanesque origin, has a nave with a semicircular apse and pointed rib vaulting; on 17 January San Antón is celebrated with about fifty bonfires, and it produces oil under the Aceite del Bajo Aragón Protected Designation of Origin.
Activity
Patron saint festivities of Maella from 9 to 13 August, in honour of San Esteban, San Lorenzo and Santa Susana. On 17 January San Antón is also celebrated, with about fifty bonfires kept burning until the following day.
Curiosity
Aceite del Bajo Aragón is a protected designation of origin for extra virgin olive oil produced in the historic territory of the Bajo Aragón, established in 2000; within Aragon it covers 77 municipalities in Teruel and Zaragoza, including Maella, in an area with the highest density of olive groves in the region, at around 70 olive trees per hectare, and the only one with a designation of origin. The oil must come from olives extracted exclusively by mechanical processes; it has a clean appearance, a yellow colour ranging from golden to old gold, and a smooth, fluid taste, with a minimum of 80% of the empeltre variety and up to 20% of arbequina and royal. Self-consumption is its main commercial outlet, followed by the Zaragoza market, and within Spain it is sold mainly in Catalonia, Madrid and Valencia.
Monument
Romanesque church of San Esteban in Maella, with a single nave and a semicircular apse covered by a pointed ribbed vault over transverse arches, and a three-opening bell gable.
Nature
The Sierra de Vizcuerno extends south of Maella, on the border of the Bajo Aragón-Caspe with Catalonia. According to the article on the neighbouring municipality of Caspe, its territory contains the highest point of that municipal term, the Vizcuerno peak, at 432 metres, the highest elevation in that part of the comarca.
Monument
The castle of Pérez de Almazán, in Maella (Zaragoza), had belonged to the Order of Calatrava until, on 10 July 1507, the Aragonese nobleman Miguel Pérez de Almazán bought the town of Maella from Juan de Foix; Ferdinand the Catholic then named him first lord of the town, and with it the castle also passed into his hands, which he tried to restore, a task later continued by his son Juan. Pérez de Almazán, of converso Jewish descent, was secretary and a trusted man of the Catholic Monarchs: he signed as chancellor the decree expelling the Jews in 1492 and took part in the Capitulations of Santa Fe with Christopher Columbus. In the 19th century the castle fell into ruin as a result of the Battle of Maella, fought during the Carlist Wars.
Monument
The church of San Esteban de Maella, with a classicist façade, stands on the banks of the Matarraña river. It is of Romanesque origin, with a nave with a semicircular apse covered by a pointed ribbed vault on transverse arches, and ends in a bell-gable with three openings.
Monument
The town hall of Maella is a building made up of two parts: a Gothic palace in the lower section and, above it, a clock tower from the Baroque period. Almost rectangular in plan, it was originally built as part of the town wall's gate, and in the 15th century it became a fortified palace, of which the battlements crowning the building and some arrow slits are still preserved. Between the late 16th and the 17th century a major renovation added the tower, and by the 17th century it had become the seat of the town council. Its exterior portals also date from that period: one classicist, with a curved entablature and Solomonic columns, and another more Baroque, framed by a giant order of pilasters. Today it is listed as a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection).
Activity
Feast of Saint Anthony on 17 January in Maella, a local holiday of the municipality along with Easter Monday. About fifty bonfires are lit and kept burning all night and the following day, until the festival ends with communal meals organized in the streets and neighborhoods of the village.
Monument
Traditional wash house in the town centre of Maella.
Historical milestone
Alfonso II incorporated Maella into the kingdom in 1168, within the advance along the lower basin of the Matarraña. The local legend of the young woman who cut off her hand and sent it on a silver tray to an abusive lord explains the hand that figures on the municipal coat of arms.
Historical milestone
Martin I held court at Maella in 1404 and in 1423 the town hosted a Cortes that went down in history for being the first held without the presence of the monarch. The fact reflects the weight that the Aragonese institutions had against the Crown.
Historical milestone
On 1 October 1838, in the middle of the First Carlist War, the troops of Ramón Cabrera defeated at Maella the liberal column of General Pardiñas, who died in the fighting. It was one of the Carlist victories with the greatest echo in the Bajo Aragón.
Historical milestone
The sculptor Pablo Gargallo was born in Maella in 1881 and developed in Paris a body of work in sheet iron and lead that placed him among the renewers of twentieth-century sculpture. He died in 1934 and his birthplace has been restored as a museum space.
Food and drink
Maella is among the districts covered by the Protected Designation of Origin Melocotón de Calanda, which requires the fruit to be bagged on the tree and harvested late. The result is a yellow peach, firm and of great size.