Village
Municipality of the comarca of Monte Ibérico-Corredor de Almansa, in the province of Albacete, which added to its name the castle that crowns it in the revision of the gazetteer of 1916; of that fortress, destroyed in 921 by Ordoño II of León and rebuilt in the time of Alfonso X, the entrance towers have been restored. In its district is the Iberian sanctuary of the Cerro de los Santos, in use between the third and first centuries BC, from which comes the Gran Dama Oferente that figures on the municipal coat of arms, and two kilometres from the village the eighteenth-century shrine of Nuestra Señora de la Consolación, with a Rococo camarín.
Monument
Iberian sanctuary located in the municipal district of Montealegre del Castillo, near the road to Yecla, in use between the 3rd and 1st centuries BC and one of the most important sites of peninsular Iberian art; it is the origin of the Gran Dama Oferente, now in the Museo Arqueológico Nacional in Madrid. It stood on the route of the Via Heraclea, Hannibal's road, in Bastetani territory bordering Contestania. The floor plan of the temple, still recognisable at the end of the 19th century, has disappeared completely, and only drawings of some elements survive, such as an Ionic capital, together with wall remains and recent excavation test pits. A commemorative obelisk erected in 1929 marks the site, with Mount Arabí standing out to the south.
Monument
The church of Santiago Apóstol, raised in the 18th century over Renaissance precedents from the 15th century and remodelled along Neoclassical lines, forms the backbone of the village of Montealegre del Castillo. It has a single nave with a barrel vault divided by transverse arches, three side chapels and a polygonal chancel with the choir at the foot. Its rich altarpiece and valuable paintings were destroyed in 1936, during the Civil War, when the church was plundered and partly razed; the restoration, slow and partial, began in the 1970s and 1980s with the installation of stained-glass windows, a new floor and a large triptych for the main altar, the work of Mother Pilar Álvarez de Sotomayor and María Teresa Peña, depicting three scenes from the life of the Apostle Santiago.
Monument
Sanctuary located about two kilometres from Montealegre del Castillo, built following the Marian apparition of 1605; its present fabric, from the 18th century, was raised mostly between 1760 and 1784, with later works completed already in the 19th century, in 1852. Cross-shaped in plan, it is covered at the crossing and in the Rococo camarín by two hemispherical domes, and has two rows of chapels in a row along each side. It preserves a canvas of the Prendimiento de Cristo, a work donated by the painter Pedro Orrente. The original image of the Virgen de la Consolación was burned along with the altarpiece during the Civil War, in 1936; the one that presides over the sanctuary today dates from after that.
Monument
The remains of the fortress that gives the municipality its name, destroyed in 921 by Ordoño II of León and rebuilt in the time of Alfonso X. The town council acquired the site in 1988 and its entrance towers have been restored since the year 2000.
Monument
A former water conduit made up of some twenty arches that carried the flow to an old flour mill; the last five are built of ashlar masonry.
Activity
Patron saint festivities that include the Entrada de la Virgen from her sanctuary to the village on the 14th, a procession, a flower offering in traditional dress and a medieval market. According to tradition, the Virgin appeared in 1605 on a broom shrub, two kilometres from the village, to a Morisco named Jamet, whom she asked to have a temple built for her; in her honour the Santuario de Nuestra Señora de la Consolación was built, where the image remains for the rest of the year after being returned in a pilgrimage in September. The original carving was burned during the Civil War along with the sanctuary's altarpiece, and the one venerated today dates from after that. In 2005 the fourth centenary of the apparition was celebrated, with the image carried in procession through all the streets of the village for the first time.
Curiosity
The Gran Dama Oferente, found at the Iberian site of the Cerro de los Santos, in the municipal district of Montealegre del Castillo, is a limestone bust about a metre and a half tall, carved between the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC. It depicts a female figure richly dressed in three overlapping tunics, holding a small vessel, perhaps as an offering to a deity or as part of an initiation rite, her gaze lost in the distance. It is one of the main symbols of Iberian art and appears on the coat of arms of the municipality, although the original piece is kept in the Museo Arqueológico Nacional in Madrid.
Historical milestone
In the revision of the Spanish municipal gazetteer of 1916, the village until then called simply Montealegre added to its name the castle that crowns it, to distinguish itself from the other Montealegres scattered across Spain.
Food and drink
A border dish between La Mancha and the Levante: rice cooked in broth with wild rabbit, mountain snails, tomato, ñora and rosemary. It is made in a paella pan over vine shoots and is the meal of the comarca's days out in the countryside.