Palma del Río

Roman origins are claimed for Palma del Río — tradition links it to the consul Aulus Cornelius Palma and to a settlement called Decuma — but the first solid written record comes from 855, when Eulogius of Córdoba mentioned it in his account of the martyrdom of three Mozarabs.

The alcazaba and the town walls went up in the tenth and eleventh centuries to defend the settlement against Christian raids from the north. Those raids eventually succeeded: in 1241 troops under the Infante Don Alonso took the town for Fernando III, and Palma del Río passed into the administrative orbit of Córdoba. The population that followed was mixed — Christians, Arabs, and Jews — and the land was redistributed accordingly.

In 1342 King Alfonso XI gave the town to his admiral Egidio Boccanegra as a feudal gift. The Black Death later cut the population sharply, and Boccanegra's successor replenished it by bringing a large Mudéjar community from Gumiel de Izán in Burgos — by the end of the fourteenth century the largest such community in Andalucía. Jewish converts from Córdoba arrived in 1473, fleeing violence there. Both communities were expelled in 1492.

The town became a Countship in 1507, and the following two centuries brought considerable prosperity: the Counts built their palace, the population reached 2,500 by 1675, and the monumental architecture of that era is still visible today. The eighteenth century reversed this — fewer than 1,000 inhabitants by 1774 — yet it was in that same period that the parish church of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción, the town's most emblematic religious building, was constructed. Recovery came in the nineteenth century: 5,000 inhabitants by 1840, a railway connection to Córdoba and Sevilla from 1859, and city status granted by the queen regent María Cristina in 1888.

Palma del Río has a notable stock of historic buildings spanning roughly a thousand years. The Moorish alcazaba and the medieval town walls are the oldest survivals. Civil architecture includes the Palacio de Portocarrero, the Hospital de San Sebastián, and the covered market.

On the religious side, the town has several significant buildings: the parish church of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción, the church of the former Convento de San Francisco, the convents of Santa Clara and Santo Domingo, the Ermita de Nuestra Señora de Belén, and the Iglesia del Buen Suceso.