Village
Tivissa is a town in the Ribera d'Ebre, with 1,658 inhabitants (INE 2025), which includes the settlements of Darmós, Llaberia and the Serra d'Almós. In its territory stands the Iberian settlement of Castellet de Banyoles, declared a Historic-Artistic Monument in 1978, and several caves with prehistoric rock paintings -the Pi, Ramat, Cingle and Taller caves-, with examples of schematic art and Levantine art dating from between 10,000 and 3,500 years ago; the complex forms part of the rock art of the Mediterranean Basin declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1998. The Taller cave, with deer figures, was discovered in 1991. In Llaberia, a former medieval settlement, old facades are preserved, among them that of Cal Riba, with an inscription from 1640.
Monument
El Castellet de Banyoles, in the municipality of Tivissa (Ribera d'Ebre), is the site of the most extensive Iberian settlement in southern Catalonia, with the remains of a medieval fortification, probably from the 12th century, on the same site; the complex has been declared a Cultural Asset of National Interest since 1978. Located about 115 metres above the course of the Ebro, with a maximum area of close to 42,000 square metres, it stands out for its two pentagonal defensive towers at the entrance. The treasure of Tivissa was found there in 1927, made up of gilded silver paterae, silver vessels and necklaces, along with other jewellery from 1912 and two bronze oxen from 1925, now in the Museum of Archaeology of Catalonia. The settlement was violently destroyed at the end of the 3rd century BC.
Monument
On the summit of the Coll del Ventall, above the hermitage of Sant Blai, in the municipality of Tivissa, remains survive of walls belonging to an Arab castle declared a cultural asset of national interest; only the base still stands, made of irregular stone bonded with mortar. Documented as a castell termenat (boundary castle) in 1174, it commands a wide view over Prades, Siurana, the Priorat and the Ribera d'Ebre, from Garcia to Miravet, as well as over the Terra Alta. According to the British Arabist Peter Scales, the tower's first floor had a rectangular plan of 9 by 5 metres, with a wall two metres thick.
Monument
The old walled town of Tivissa had three gates: the portal d'Avall, the portal de l'Era and the now-vanished portal de la Raval, built around 1365 when Prince Joan de Prades ordered the town fortified as a refuge in times of danger. Of the walls and the castell termenal that once stood within them, documented since the 12th century, few traces remain, chiefly pointed stone arches reused in some houses, such as Ca la Vila. The portal d'Avall is a voussoired round arch framed by a basket-handle arch; the portal de l'Era, rebuilt in the 17th century, opens in what was once a wall tower and retains corbels from a former machicolation. The castle was destroyed around 1725, and the present town centre was built on its ruins.
Monument
A square tower of five storeys attached to one end of the rear façade of the Mas d'Aumet farmhouse, in the south of the municipality of Tivissa, near Vandellòs, on sloping ground that leaves the tower at the highest point. It is crowned with stepped battlements and is entered directly from the first floor, through a horseshoe-arched doorway set within a rectangle, with a staircase attached parallel to the wall; the upper floors repeat the same type of window, except the top one, which has three blind windows with wooden lintels. Beside the doorway an oval sundial is painted, and at the level of the fourth floor there are corbels that may have supported a machicolation. The exterior finish is of rendered mortar, with squared ashlar at the corners.
Monument
The tower of the Frauques farmhouse, declared a cultural asset of national interest, is attached to one end of the rear façade of the farmhouse, at the southern edge of the municipality of Tivissa, concealing two of its façades. Square in plan and four storeys high, it is covered with a flat roof terrace bounded by the wall itself, without battlements, and is entered from inside the house, through a pointed arch of rough stone now walled up. On that same façade a narrow machicolation survives, next to which a layer of mortar was later added forming a sundial; on the other façade, a row of segmental-arched openings conceals the original windows, framed in dressed stone. The walls, of stone bonded with mortar with squared ashlar corners, have lost almost all their render.
Monument
The tower of the Mas d'en Sedó, in the municipality of Tivissa (Ribera d'Ebre), is a building declared a Cultural Asset of National Interest located to the southeast of the municipality, about six kilometres from the village. Square in plan, it is attached to one end of the main façade of the mas d'en Sedó farmhouse, whose two faces it partly covers, and has five storeys in elevation with a slightly battered base. The top, originally crenellated, was later covered with a single-pitch roof of Arab tile, thereby gaining an extra storey, although some battlements of the original crown can still be seen and, on two façades, two corbels that may have supported a machicolation. It has few openings, most of them small, and the entrance is hidden within the walls of the farmhouse, a complex made up of several attached wings rising to as much as three storeys.
Monument
Sant Jaume is the parish church of Tivissa, in the Ribera d'Ebre, declared a cultural asset of national interest. It stands beside the plaça Baranova, at the western end of the old walled town. With a single nave, ribbed vault and polygonal apse, its construction was interrupted in the 14th century and not resumed until the 16th, when Renaissance chapels and the octagonal bell tower, thirty metres high, were added, following the design of Jaume Amigó. The church was completed in 1634 with a two-storey baroque portal with Ionic and Solomonic columns. In the 18th century the chapel of the Roser was added, with a Greek-cross plan and a dome, and in the 19th it was extended with a new presbytery and a transept crowned by an octagonal lantern, works that continued until 1894.
Activity
Festa major of Tivissa, dedicated to Sant Jaume, which fills the village with music, exhibitions, and festive events for about ten days between mid- and late July.
Historical milestone
In 1927 there appeared at the settlement of El Castellet de Banyoles a set of silver vessels and paterae decorated with ritual scenes, hidden around the third century BC. It is one of the great treasures of Iberian goldsmithing in the Peninsula.
Food and drink
The beekeepers set their hives among the rosemary, the thyme and the heather of the slopes of the massif. From there come monofloral rosemary and wildflower honeys, besides the wax and the pollen that are sold at the comarca's fairs.