Village
Cornellà del Terri is a municipality of the Pla de l'Estany, in Girona, beside the Terri river and made up of nine population centres, most with Romanesque churches. It has 2,414 inhabitants (2025). On 19 August 1337 King Peter the Ceremonious granted the valley its Carta Puebla, and in 1367 the formation of a municipal Council was authorised; the same king allowed part of Cornellà castle to be demolished. Until the 1916 reform the municipality was simply called Cornellà, the year in which it adopted its current name to distinguish itself from other places of the same name. Every Easter Monday, in the plaza del Maig, the Festa de l'Arbre and the Ball del Cornut are held.
Monument
A ruined 12th-13th-century castle, remodelled in the 14th, standing on a hill by the Terri river in Cornellà del Terri, with the church of Sant Cugat -formerly its own chapel- integrated within its grounds; it formed part of the defensive line north of Girona. It is identified with the castrum de Rogationibus of the Latin sources, the place-name from which Ravós derives, and it belonged to the episcopal see of Girona; in the 14th century it passed to the lords of Palol de Rebardit and, with the 19th-century disentailment, to private owners, becoming a farming estate. Trapezoidal in plan with four round towers, it best preserves its east and north façades. Its wall paintings, rediscovered in 1920, remain in the church owing to local opposition to their removal to a museum. Bien Cultural de Interés Nacional (BCIN 709-MH), Catalonia's highest level of heritage protection.
Monument
Gothic farmhouse (masia) in Cornellà del Terri declared a Bien Cultural de Interés Nacional (Catalonia's highest level of heritage protection), of rectangular plan with rubble-stone walls and ashlar at the corners; notable features include the square tower with a hip roof, a voussoired main doorway and a Gothic window with an ogee arch, small arches and decorated imposts, and ceilings made of oak beams. According to the historian Father Constans, the tower is documented from the 11th to the 15th century, though the present building preserves 15th-century structures with later additions. It belonged first to the Pujals, a lineage documented since 1019, then to the Foixà family and, in the past century, to the Galibern family of Torroella; in the early 14th century, a canon of Girona Cathedral named Dalmau de Pujals, whose sarcophagus lies in the cathedral cloister, belonged to this same lineage.
Monument
Church of Romanesque origin with a Gothic apse and bell tower, the head of the former village of Sant Andreu del Terri, on the right bank of the river Terri, southeast of the municipality; it is recorded as functioning as a parish in 1372. The church was built by the monks of Santa Maria d'Amer between the years 840 and 860. The village surrounding it was an independent municipality until 1976, when it was incorporated into Cornellà del Terri together with the former municipalities of Ravós del Terri and Santa Llogaia del Terri.
Monument
Romanesque hermitage of the 12th century situated within the urban centre of Cornellà del Terri, very close to the square, which according to various authors was the chapel of the vanished castle of Cornellà, documented since the 11th century as Castrum de Corneliano; no historical records survive about it, and it is possible it was formerly dedicated to another patron, since the present one, Saint Anthony, is a late dedication, taking root from the 13th century onward. It is a simple building, with a rectangular nave covered by a pointed barrel vault and a semicircular apse; the doorway, with a round arch and large voussoirs, preserves remains of paintings made with red ochre over whitewash that originally covered the whole façade. It was restored between 1993 and 1994 by the Generalitat, the Diputació de Girona and the town council.
Monument
The church of Sant Cugat de Ravós del Terri stands on a small hill on the right bank of the river Terri, within the precinct of the castle of Ravós, in the municipality of Cornellà del Terri, and originally functioned as the chapel of that castle. Documented since 1096, it became an independent parish in 1314. It is a single-nave building with a semicircular apse and a pointed vault, whose structure dates back to the 11th century, probably over a pre-Romanesque building; the apse, with a frieze of Lombard arcading, was remodelled in the early 12th century. Inside are preserved mural paintings attributed to the circle of the Master of Lluçà, and the cornice of the nave bears animal heads and human figures related to sin and its punishment, dated to the late 12th century.
Monument
Parish church of the settlement of Sords, in the municipality of Cornellà del Terri (Pla de l'Estany), situated beside the river Terri, with which it forms, together with the comunidor - datable to between the 16th and 18th centuries - and the rectory, a stepped complex above the riverbed. It is documented in 985 as "Sancto Stephano quod est in villa Surdis" and again in 1074; the 1359 hearth tax (fogatge) records six royal hearths and seventeen clergy in the parish, whose inhabitants took part in 1391 in the assault on the Jewish quarter of Girona. The church, whose Romanesque part dates from the second half of the 12th century to the early 13th, with a single nave and semicircular apse, was heightened and extended westward, chiefly in the 18th century, when side chapels and a tall bell tower were added; from the original Romanesque building the apse and a good part of the walls survive.
Monument
The parish church of Sant Joan Baptista de Borgonyà is the focal point of the hamlet of Borgonyà, on a small hill on the left bank of the river Terri, in the municipality of Cornellà del Terri (Girona). The place name Burguniano is documented from the year 957, and the church, dedicated to Saint John, was consecrated in 1142; that same year it came under the authority of the bishop of Girona through a compensation of one hundred morabatins, paid half in gold and half in mules. It later came under the jurisdiction of Girona, which ceded it to King Martin in 1399, and it was remodelled in the 17th century. It is a single-nave building with a pointed vault and semicircular apse, decorated with a frieze of Lombard arcading in black volcanic stone; in 1623 the façade was remodelled, with a bell tower and a new doorway.
Monument
The Romanesque church of Sant Julià i Santa Basilissa de Corts is the parish church of the hamlet of Corts, in the municipality of Cornellà del Terri, and is listed in the Inventory of Architectural Heritage of Catalonia. It stands on a small promontory at the centre of the hamlet. A church dedicated to Sant Julià already existed in the second half of the 10th century, ceded in 1019 by Count Berenguer Ramon I to the canonry of Girona; in 1102 Bishop Bernat Umbert authorised the building of a new church, which largely coincides with the present one, of a single nave with a semicircular apse, later enlarged with a Gothic side aisle. It is entered through a Romanesque doorway with voussoired arches on columns with capitals decorated with human faces and plant motifs; among the voussoirs a Christ in Majesty stands out.
Monument
Church that forms part of the complex of the village of Pujals dels Cavallers, a population entity of Cornellà del Terri, situated at the top of the ridge that separates the Garrumbert and Farga streams. It is documented since 1019, and already in the 15th century the gazetteers record that the parish was dedicated to Saint Eulalia. It has a rectangular single-nave plan, covered with a pointed vault, and a semicircular apse facing east; the bell-gable is reached by an outside staircase next to the main door. Its walls, with better-carved ashlar at the apse and façade against a coarser masonry elsewhere, suggest a small 11th-12th-century church, enlarged in the 13th with the present apse and façade, and remodelled again from the 17th century onward.
Monument
The church of Santa Maria, in the hamlet of Pujals dels Pagesos, within the municipality of Cornellà del Terri, is a Romanesque church built in the 12th century, with a triple-archivolt doorway on the west façade, remodelled in the 18th century with the addition of two side chapels and in the 19th with the construction of the present slender bell tower, above the old open-sided (cadireta) bell tower still preserved beneath the triumphal arch. Inside is kept a Romanesque Christ in Majesty found in 1982 when an old window was opened, a small 1333 ossuary with the remains of the lords Guillem Pere Palol and Guillem de Cornellà, a 16th-century silver processional cross and a Gothic baptismal font.
Nature
A river that channels most of the outflow of the Estany de Banyoles towards the river Ter, of which it is a left-bank tributary, crossing a good part of the Pla de l'Estany county. Along its course, with a drop of 182 metres between 220 and 38 metres in altitude, it passes through Banyoles, Cornellà del Terri, Sant Julià de Ramis and Medinyà, among other settlements, and receives tributaries such as the Matamors, the Vall-llobera stream and the Revardit. Its course preserves various meanders and sites of scenic interest.
Activity
The Festa Major (the town's main annual festival) of Cornellà del Terri, in the Pla de l'Estany, is traditionally held over the Easter weekend. The central event takes place on Easter Monday, with the Plantada de l'Arbre del Maig (the planting of the May tree) and the Ball del Cornut, a traditional dance that gives the festival its name, also known as the Festa de l'Arbre i Ball del Cornut.
Activity
A traditional Good Friday celebration, documented since the 14th century, one of the oldest popular traditions preserved in the region. It consists of the Plantada de l'Arbre de Maig ('planting of the May tree') and the enigmatic ball del Cornut ('dance of the cuckold'): on Good Friday the tallest poplar in the municipality is cut down, and on Easter Monday it is carried to the square and hoisted up, decorated with a plume of pine and horns, until the following Good Friday. The dance, with choreography and music drawn from Joan Amades's Costumari, is a round of six couples around a small horned tree planted in the square, around which a dancer wearing two large horns leaps. According to tradition, it may recall ancient rites invoking good harvests, to which was later added the rejoicing at the end of the oppressive feudal customs (mals usos) in 1337.
Historical milestone
Peter the Ceremonious granted the inhabitants of the place the settlement charter setting out their rights and dues; thirty years later the municipal council was authorized and in 1385 Queen Sibil·la de Fortià stayed in the town.
Historical milestone
A group of village musicians formed in 1913 what would become one of the longest-lived and most prestigious sardana coblas in Catalonia; since then it has accompanied aplecs and festes majors all over the country.
Food and drink
The irrigated land along the Terri produces pulses and vegetables that supply the comarca markets, while the dry land is given over to cereals and fodder maize for the cattle and pig farming of the plain.