Ariza

Long before the medieval walls went up, the site lay on a Roman road — a stretch of paved *calzada* still survives, largely swallowed by vegetation — and the surrounding area has yielded traces of Roman villas and a Visigothic burial ground. Under Muslim rule, Ariza had a mosque, walls with three gateways, and by the late period was one of the most important towns in the Jalón valley.

Alfonso I of Aragón took the town in 1120, though it passed back and forth between Aragon and Castile for generations. In 1213 Pedro II granted its people freedom from taxation. The Black Prince's namesake Pedro I of Castile occupied it in 1362; in 1381 Pedro IV sold town and villages to his standard-bearer Guillén de Palafox to fund war in Sardinia. The townspeople fought repeatedly to escape Palafox lordship — a 1490 uprising called the *alteraciones de Ariza* ended with the execution of its leaders.

After Castile and Aragon united, territorial disputes faded but the struggle against the Palafox family continued. Ariza backed the future Felipe V in the War of Succession; in gratitude he awarded the town the title *Muy noble y muy fidelísima* in 1708 and exempted it from a key tax. In 1811, during the Peninsular War, a battle was fought here between General Durán and French troops. Mid-nineteenth century records describe a farming and weaving economy: wheat, barley, flax, linen looms, and five shops.

The main monument is the church of Santa María la Real, a Gothic building constructed entirely in dressed stone except for its four-storey tower. Inside, three naves of equal height — the central one wider than the side aisles — are covered by stellar ribbed vaults. It holds a notable altarpiece and an image of the Cristo de la Agonía.

The church of San Pedro, begun between 1618 and 1620, is deliberately plain — its austerity recalls the Herreran school. A single nave of three bays carries a barrel vault with transverse lunettes. The Convento de San Francisco shares that sober Herreran style; little of the convent wing survives, though more of its church does. It served as a fort during the Carlist Wars. On the outskirts stands the Ermita del Amparo, dedicated to the town's patron saint.

The castle ruins sit at the highest point of the town. Dating from the Taifa kingdoms and Almoravid period, it is mentioned in chronicles by al-Udrí and in the *Cantar de Mío Cid*. Once the most important fortress in Aragón, it now survives only as scattered stretches of perimeter masonry; its interior covered some 5,000 m². A statue of the Sacred Heart stands on the site today. Immediately below the castle platform, around eighty wine cellars are cut into the hillside in up to three horizontal tiers.

In the town centre stands the Palacio de los Marqueses de Ariza, the classical-style residence of the Palafox family, built between the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Three storeys arranged around a staircase, rubble-stone walls framed by brick courses, and a restrained entrance portal flanked by Tuscan pilasters face the Plaza de San Francisco. Nearby, a medieval-style bridge crosses the Jalón, its narrow roadway and passing bays built across at least two separate construction phases.