Village
Guissona is a town in la Segarra, in Lleida, at the centre of the plain of the same name north of Cervera, and is the most populous municipality in the comarca after the capital, with 7,774 inhabitants (INE 2025). Its origin lies in the Iberian city of Iesso, conquered by the Romans and turned into a walled municipium, of which remains have been found, including thermal baths; it was possibly an episcopal see before passing to Seo de Urgel after the Muslim invasion. Reconquered in 1020, it remained under the bishops of Urgel, who founded an Augustinian monastery here, later a collegiate church. It preserves the medieval wall, an arcaded main square, the church of Santa María and a museum of archaeology and numismatics. Its economy is based on agriculture, livestock farming and an agricultural cooperative.
Monument
The palau de Fluvià, also known as Obra de Fluvià, is a Gothic-Renaissance building one kilometre from Guissona, beside the road to Massoteres, in the old district of the depopulated hamlet of Fluvià. Declared a Bien Cultural de Interés Nacional (Catalonia's highest level of heritage protection), it remained unfinished in the early 16th century. It belonged to the Universitat of Guissona from 1383 and passed to the bishopric of Urgell; in 1505 Bishop Pere de Cardona bought the seigneurial rights and undertook, until 1514, a residence for the bishops of Urgell to replace the old castle. It is square in plan, centred on a courtyard, with a church dedicated to Saint George, Saint Lucy and Saint Blaise, and a façade with arcaded windows decorated with plant and animal motifs, in a decorative scheme that combined late Gothic and Renaissance, today deteriorated.
Monument
Church situated on the Plaça Major of Guissona, raised on a first building from the 5th century founded by Augustinian monks; after Muslim rule it was rebuilt in the 10th century, and a third church, begun in 1072 by Count Ermengol IV, was consecrated in 1099. Secularised in 1255 and again in 1272, it was a secular collegiate church from the late 15th century until the mid-19th. In 1769 the vault of the chapel of the Roser collapsed, where the Blessed Sacrament was kept, which forced it to be moved to the chapel of the Cloister; the present church, neoclassical with a Baroque façade, began to be built in 1776 and was consecrated in 1800, the work of Feliu Borràs. It preserves a bell tower from 1688, quadrangular in plan and with three stages. The Civil War destroyed its organ and altarpieces.
Monument
The only surviving gateway of the three that gave access to the walled precinct of Guissona, whose origins go back to the Roman city of Iesso, occupied by the Muslims in the early 8th century and conquered by the Christians in the early 11th, under the rule of the bishops of Urgell from then on. Built into Cal Torres, the Portal de l'Àngel shows a pointed arch, a balcony with an arrow slit and a gallery of four pointed arches; on the other side, a round arch with a niche holding the image of a standing angel, with a sword and royal crown in its hands, topped by battlements. The Torres family has preserved it for centuries, and before it muleteers used to invoke its protection. Of the wall only two fragments remain beside the gateway. Bien Cultural de Interés Nacional (Catalonia's highest level of heritage protection).
Monument
The castle of Rubiol, declared a Bien Cultural de Interés Nacional (Catalonia's highest level of heritage protection), stands on a small, almost circular rise in the middle of a cultivated field, near the boundary of the district of Guissona with Massoteres, in the Segarra. Of it only the remains survive of a small rectangular tower measuring 15 by 5 metres with a single room, built of squared local stone bonded with mortar. It is documented for the first time in the act of consecration of Santa Maria de la Seu d'Urgell, in 1040, and is mentioned again in other 11th-century documents; around 1550 its lordship had passed into the hands of the universitat itself, that is, the municipality, of Guissona.
Activity
Festa major of Guissona (Segarra, Lleida), a town where the Roman site of Iesso is located. It is held in September and its events include the Trobada de Gegants, in which the town's giants, Roc and Plàcida, are displayed.
Curiosity
Ancient Roman city founded around 100 BC, with walls, gates, domus, sewers and original streets preserved in the archaeological park of Guissona.
Historical milestone
After centuries of unstable frontier, Count Ermengol IV of Urgell recovered Guissona in 1072 and promoted the construction of the Romanesque church of Santa Maria. The villa came under the seigneury of the bishop of Urgell.
Food and drink
The agricultural cooperative founded in Guissona in the mid-20th century has become one of the largest meat groups in Spain, with an abattoir, sausage-making workshops and its own network of shops. In 2013 the company Corporación Alimentaria Guissona was set up as its parent, the most important Catalan-capital group in the food sector, bringing together around 4,500 supplying farmers and livestock breeders, as well as the Caixa Rural de Guissona and several linked foundations. In 2022 it received the FPCAT award. It has transformed the town's demographics.