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Monastery of Santa María de la Valldigna

Simat de la Valldigna, La Safor, Valencia

1 Villages · 3 Monuments · 1 Historical milestones · 1 Food and drink

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Monastery of Santa María de la Valldigna

Monument · Simat de la Valldigna, La Safor, Valencia

The monastery of Santa María de la Valldigna was founded on 15 March 1298 by James II of Aragon, who granted this land to the abbot of Santes Creus for a new Cistercian foundation; tradition credits the king with the valley's name, which he is said to have called vall digna for a monastery of that order. The 1835 disentailment brought abandonment and the demolition of a large part of the complex: the baldachin was blown up, and the Gothic arches of the upper cloister were incorporated, between 1920 and 1926, into the Canto del Pico palace in Torrelodones, from where they returned in 2006 after its purchase by the Generalitat in 2003. Today the church, with vaults and a polychrome ceiling, the Portal Nuevo with the coats of arms of the Crown of Aragon and of the abbot, and the restored old oil mill are well preserved.

Photo: Pelayo2 (Wikimedia Commons) (CC BY-SA 3.0)

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