Village
Cervera is the capital of la Segarra and the seat of its judicial district, in the province of Lleida, with 9,440 inhabitants, known for its old neoclassical university and its walled old town. Its heritage includes eleven assets listed as Bien Cultural de Interés Nacional (Catalonia's highest level of heritage protection), among them the castle and the church of Sant Pere el Gran, both from the 11th century, the 16th-century walled precinct, the 14th-15th-century parish church of Santa Maria and the university itself, from the 18th century. Its name, of pre-Roman origin, has traditionally been linked to the expression “place of deer”, echoed in the town's coat of arms with two deer. Cervera is the birthplace of the motorcycle riders Marc and Álex Márquez and of the writer Rosa Fabregat i Armengol, a pioneer of Catalan science fiction.
Monument
The building of the University of Cervera, rectangular in plan with prismatic towers at its corners, was raised between 1718 and 1740 next to the old Jewish quarter of the city to house the university that Philip V had created in 1717, after closing the other six then existing in Catalonia, as a reward for Cervera's loyalty during the War of the Spanish Succession and a punishment for Barcelona's disaffection. Governed by statutes of 1726, it taught theology, canon law, humanities, medicine, philosophy and law until 1842, when the university was definitively transferred to Barcelona. The building, in neoclassical style, is declared bien cultural de interés nacional (Catalonia's highest level of heritage protection).
Monument
Catalan Gothic church built between the 14th and 15th centuries in the centre of Cervera, in the Segarra comarca (Lleida), with reused Romanesque elements. The chapels of the transept were already finished in 1334 and the high altar was consecrated in 1358; the original façade, demolished in 1821, was replaced by a neo-Gothic one. It has three naves with side chapels between the buttresses and a polygonal apse with an ambulatory of eight radiating chapels. The octagonal tower, with wide Gothic windows, was completed in the mid-15th century and houses six bells, the oldest from 1424. The south portal preserves a 13th-century Romanesque doorway with the scene of the charity of Saint Martin. It is declared a Bien Cultural de Interés Nacional (Catalonia's highest level of heritage protection).
Monument
Sant Pere el Gros is a circular-plan Romanesque church on the outskirts of Cervera, to the southwest, on a small rise beside the confluence of the Salat stream with the Ondara river; it is the westernmost Romanesque church built during this period. It dates from the 11th century and is the only surviving remnant of Cervera's old monastic complex; its centralised plan, with a semicircular apse, has led some authors to attribute to it a possible funerary character. The entrance, with a round arch, is offset from the axis that defines the interior, formed by the rotunda and the apse joined by a transitional section; the inner wall was hollowed out with niches, and the roof forms a false dome over the nave. It is a monument declared a Bien Cultural de Interés Nacional (Catalonia's highest level of heritage protection).
Monument
The old town of Cervera, declared a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection) as a historic ensemble in 1991, is arranged around Carrer Major, from Plaça Major to the old Santa Maria gateway, and around the University quarter, presided over by its imposing 18th-century building. The town grew up at the foot of the castle, raised on the Puig de Montserè and already documented in 1026; in 1182 Alfonso I granted its inhabitants the right to form guilds and appoint consuls, and in 1275 James I granted it the privilege of a royal town. The walls that turned the city into a true fortress, whose ensemble is declared a Bien de Interés Cultural, were built in the time of Peter III the Ceremonious, in the mid-14th century, in the face of the threat of war with Castile.
Monument
Baroque building of the 17th and 18th centuries that presides over Cervera's Plaça Major, in the Segarra, considered one of the most original achievements of Catalan Baroque civil architecture. Although a building serving as the paeria already existed in the 14th century, the present one was built under the direction of Francesc Puig from 1679, was completed in 1688 with the collaboration of his son, also named Francesc, and was extended in 1786 to a design by Jaume Padró. Its façade, arranged as a symmetrical body centred on the doorway and a large window, has survived practically unaltered. The building was restored between 1985 and 1990 under the direction of the architect Enric Solsona. It is declared a Bien Cultural de Interés Nacional (Catalonia's highest level of heritage protection).
Monument
The castle of Castellnou d'Oluges stands on the left bank of the Sió river, on the hill where the walled village of Castellnou, annexed to Cervera, sits, in the Segarra. Documented since the 11th century, when it formed part of the county of Berga, it passed through the hands of the viscounts of Àger and Cabrera and in 1105 was divided between the canonries of Seu d'Urgell and Solsona. During the 12th and 13th centuries it was linked to the Cervera family, and from the late 13th century to the Oluja family, who gave it its present name; in 1358 it had 23 hearths. During the Catalan civil war (1462-1472) John II ceded it to his captain Rodrigo de Bobadilla. Much deteriorated, it preserves perimeter wall sections to the west and north, a rectangular tower eight metres high and the voussoired gateway giving access to the old walled village.
Monument
Castle documented since 1078, with an 11th-century rectangular tower expanded with a trapezoidal tower in the 12th-13th centuries; it lost its defensive function in the 17th century, when it was converted into a farmhouse, and was restored starting in the 1990s.
Monument
Remains of a fortified house of Cervera, in the village of the same name, la Prenyanosa, documented since 1045, when Guillem, son of Elomar, gave it to his wife and son; already in 1024 the place is mentioned as 'Prinnonosam', in the district of Santa Maria de Guissona. From the 12th century it was subject to the chapter of Guissona and the lords of Fluvià, until in 1270 Guillem de Fluvià sold it to the provost of Solsona, from whom the Prenyanosa lineage took its name; in the 1358 hearth tax (fogatge) it had 19 hearths. The old castle was replaced by two buildings joined by a rectangular tower, with the date 1712 carved on a lintel; the other, can Graells, is a manor house converted into a peasant dwelling. From the 16th century it was transformed into a manor house, and today they are agricultural farmhouses. It is declared a Bien Cultural de Interés Nacional (Catalonia's highest level of heritage protection).
Monument
Castell de Cervera, the first fortress of the city of Cervera (Segarra, Lleida), first documented in 1026, already in the 11th century, when it was granted by Countess Ermessenda de Carcasona and her son. Around 1050 it passed under the control of the counts of Barcelona, and by 1067 the Cervera family already appears documented as its feudatory. King John II ordered restoration works between 1465 and 1470, but the castle was destroyed in the 19th century, and by the mid-20th century only ruins remained. It stands at 542 metres above sea level on the hill of Montseré, overlooking the valley of the Ondara river, and is declared a Bien Cultural de Interés Nacional (Catalonia's highest level of heritage protection).
Monument
The fortified precinct of Cervera is the town wall, declared a Bien Cultural de Interés Nacional (Catalonia's highest level of heritage protection), developed from the castle on the hill of Montseré, to the southwest of the present urban centre. The walls and defensive towers were built in the 14th century, making use of an earlier fortification already mentioned in the 11th century. In 1285 King Peter II ordered walls to be raised and ditches dug in the face of the threat of a French invasion, and the conversion of the town into a fortress was completed in the mid-14th century under Peter III, in the face of the conflict with Castile. Its walls were bombarded for the first time in the siege of 1463-1465 by the troops of John II, and in 1706 those of Archduke Charles of Austria forced their height to be lowered, in reprisal for the support given to Philip V.
Monument
La Farinera of the Cervera Agricultural Union is a Modernista building designed by César Martinell i Brunet, a disciple of Gaudí and a specialist in agricultural buildings such as the wine cooperatives of Tarragona. The Sindicat Agrícola de Cervera i sa Comarca, founded in 1919 by farmers of the comarca to counter the abandonment of the countryside, put up the building between 1920 and 1922 as a flour mill, a strategy with which they got around a law limiting the sale of wheat outside the province. A fire destroyed it completely on 7 August 1923. The complex, on the outskirts of the town next to the railway station, also includes a social club and grain warehouses. The town council acquired it in 2002, and the following year it was declared a Bien Cultural de Interés Nacional (Catalonia's highest level of heritage protection); since 2023 its south wing has housed the Museu del Blat.
Monument
The castle of la Cardosa stands in the urban centre of the village of la Cardosa, in the district of Cervera, Segarra comarca. It is a large building of quadrangular plan, with a double-pitched roof and a ground floor, two upper floors and an attic. The main door, a voussoired round arch preceded by three steps, is flanked by two buttresses, and windows of different sizes open on the upper floors. The place has been known since the 11th century, when it formed a quadra under several knights; in 1452 Guillem de Tàrrega bought the lordship, and the present building comes from a 17th-century renovation that turned it into a fortified manor house, with the date 1678 carved on the doorway. In the early 19th century the last lords were the Montull and Tello families. The manor house, later converted into a masoveria (tenant farmstead), was restored by the artist Montse Gomis, who made it her residence and a space for art and culture.
Activity
The Festa Major de Cervera, dedicated to the Sant Crist, is held on the weekend of the fourth Sunday of September, from Friday to Monday. On Friday night are the pregó (opening speech) and the tronada (firecracker display); on Saturday afternoon, the trobada de gegants; on Sunday, the procession with the seguici festiu and a castellers (human tower) performance; and on Monday, a festa major petita with children's activities.
Curiosity
A traditional dish of the Segarra made from slow-cooked pork.
Curiosity
Traditional salt cod dish from the cooking of the Segarra, served at the festes majors of Cervera.
Nature
A river of the Ebro basin that rises, under the name barranc de Civit, near the municipality of Talavera, in the Segarra, and which also runs through the comarques of Urgell, Pla d'Urgell and Segrià before disappearing among the irrigated lands of the Canal d'Urgell, built in 1860. On its course through the Segarra it passes through Montfar, Pallerols, Sant Antolí i Vilanova, Sant Pere dels Arquells, Vergós and Cervera itself, among other settlements. It is locally known as a polluted river: in 2011 the European Union fined the municipality of Tàrrega for discharging poorly treated wastewater into its bed, in breach of European regulations.
Historical milestone
In 1359 Pere III convened the Corts in Cervera to finance the war against Castile. From that assembly came the Diputació del General, the permanent body that collected the levies and that is the origin of the Generalitat de Catalunya.
Historical milestone
In 1469 Ferdinand, prince of Aragon, accepted at Cervera the conditions of his marriage to Isabella of Castile. The agreement signed in the villa prepared the dynastic union of the two crowns, sealed that same year in Valladolid.
Historical milestone
Philip V promoted the creation of the Universitat de Cervera in 1717 to reward this town's loyalty during the War of the Spanish Succession and, at the same time, to punish Barcelona's disaffection: it replaced the six other universities the king closed in Catalonia, and was governed by statutes sanctioned in 1726, with faculties of theology, canon law, humanities, medicine, philosophy and law. To house it, an imposing rectangular building with prismatic towers at its corners was built between 1718 and 1740, near the old Jewish quarter of Cervera, today declared a cultural asset of national interest. It operated until 1842, when the faculties were definitively transferred to Barcelona.
Historical milestone
The rider Marc Márquez was born in Cervera in 1993 and is one of the most decorated motorcyclists in the history of the world championship. His brother Àlex, also born in the city, has likewise won world titles.
Food and drink
Digestive liqueur made in Cervera by macerating thyme and other herbs from the dry lands of the comarca. It is served cold at the end of a meal and is one of the products with a name of its own in the Segarra recipe book.
Food and drink
Dry biscuit of flour, egg and whole almond, cut into slices and baked twice. The bakeries of the comarca make it all year round and it accompanies sweet wines and herbal liqueurs at the end of meals.