Cifuentes

Cifuentes grew out of the Christian reconquest of the Taifa of Toledo at the end of the eleventh century. As Cuenca was retaken, the town became the head of an archpriesthood and the largest urban centre in the comarca. In 1273, Alfonso X established the Real y Honrado Concejo de la Mesta in Gualda, today a village within the Cifuentes municipality.

In the first half of the fourteenth century, the Infante Juan Manuel bought the lordship of Cifuentes from his cousin the Infanta Blanca of Portugal and built his castle on a hill to the southeast of the town. In 1431, Enrique IV granted the town to Juan de Silva, Alférez Mayor of Castile, who became its first count. Centuries later, Count Fernando de Silva rebelled against the Bourbons; in reprisal, his palace on the Plaza Mayor was destroyed.

From the nineteenth century the town functioned as an important agricultural and livestock trading centre. The nearby Trillo nuclear power station later brought a significant economic boost.

The square-plan castle was built on the orders of Juan Manuel in the fourteenth century. The church of Cristo Salvador is Romanesque in style, raised at the end of the twelfth century on the foundations of an earlier pre-Romanesque building. A hospital and the hermitage of El Remedio date from the sixteenth century.

The town also has further chapels, churches, and convents, as well as a number of old manor houses.