San Clemente

The land around San Clemente has been occupied since the Middle Bronze Age (1500–1250 BC), with remains found at the Morra de Rus and the Cerro del Toril. Later Celtiberian settlement followed, and in the Roman period a three-arch stone bridge was built to cross the Río Rus — the best-preserved Roman bridge in the province. A milestone from the Segobriga–Carthago Nova road has also been found, confirming the town lay on a Roman route. Fragments of late Roman villas and a Visigothic column shaft decorated with geometric carvings point to continued occupation into the early medieval period.

Local tradition holds that before the Muslim conquest, a Gothic community venerated a Virgin Mary figure near the river's source, eight kilometres north of the present town. When Muslim forces arrived, the image was hidden in a rock cave. A later Moorish settlement grew on the same site, and after Christian reconquest a shepherd found the statue in what became known as the Cave of the Moor. That Virgin — called the Virgen de Rus — is today the town's patron saint, and her hermitage stands at the foot of an old tower-dovecote on the same hill.

The town's name traces to a knight called Clemente Pérez de Rus, who settled the area after the reconquest. Following Alfonso VIII's conquest of Cuenca and Alarcón, and the defeat of the Almohads at Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212, the territory was absorbed into Castile. San Clemente passed through the hands of the Manuel family, the Infantes of Aragón, and finally Don Juan Pacheco, Master of the Order of Santiago and first Marquis of Villena, who elevated it to the status of a Villa on 10 December 1445.

During the war of succession between Isabella of Castile and La Beltraneja (1476–1479), San Clemente sided with Isabella against the Marquis of Villena. When Isabella won, she rewarded the town by bringing it directly under the Crown, freeing it from the lordship of Alarcón. The Catholic Monarchs visited on 9 August 1488.

San Clemente's main square holds two buildings worth close attention. The town hall is a Renaissance structure in the classical style, rectangular and corner-set, with two floors and a tower topped by a large Royal coat of arms of the House of Austria. It was begun in 1566 and completed in 1622, during the reign of Philip II, to a design by Domingo de Zalvide. The square it faces was once fully arcaded and served for centuries as the centre of civic life — religious festivals including Corpus Christi and bullfights were both held here. The building was declared a site of cultural interest in 1992.

Facing it across the square is the parish church, a large building that mixes Gothic and Renaissance construction. The architect Andrés de Vandelvira was involved in planning a new phase of the project around the mid-sixteenth century, though it was Juan de Orzollo who completed the works from 1560 onward, raising three naves to equal height and using Ionic columns with stellar rib vaults. The exterior shows Gothic fabric on the west facade and tower, while the east end presents a more classical Renaissance face designed to harmonise with the town hall. Inside, the main altar holds a large baroque altarpiece, rebuilt after the original was burned during the Spanish Civil War. In one of the side chapels stands an alabaster cross nearly three metres tall, a late-fifteenth-century piece carved in the Gothic-Flemish style with figures of the apostles, a crucified Christ, and the Virgin with Child. The author is unknown, though the work may be by a Flemish master who worked at Cuenca Cathedral.

Elsewhere in the town, the Torre Vieja predates 1445 and was built on the orders of Hernán González del Castillo, a direct descendant of the town's founder, Clemente Pérez de Rus.