Sant Martí d'Empúries

The hill on which Sant Martí d'Empúries stands was originally an island, and it was here that Greek settlers from Massalia — modern Marseille — established their first trading post on the Iberian coast, known as Palaeapolis. Around 550 BC a second Greek settlement, the Neapolis, grew up nearby, followed later by a Roman one, and for several centuries the commercial focus shifted southward. By the late Roman period, the original site had reasserted itself as the main centre of the city.

A bishopric is recorded here from 516 AD, probably surviving until the Moorish invasion. After Charlemagne reorganised the territory, Empúries became the capital of the County of Empúries. Its first count, Ermenguer, pursued an active maritime policy, and the county remained significant enough that in 935 an attack by Abd-al-Malik was recorded. In 926 the old church, then in ruins, was rebuilt with three altars, suggesting a substantial pre-Romanesque structure.

The county capital eventually moved to Castelló, probably because Sant Martí was too exposed. By 1154 the place was being called a castle and village rather than a city. In 1285, at the end of the crusade against King Pere the Great, the town was destroyed by French forces under Admiral Guillem de Lodeva. The medieval walls and castle date from after this period. During the war against Joan II, the castle fell to the forces of Queen Isabella and the Infante Ferdinand in 1467 and was entrusted to the writer and soldier Pere de Torroella, who was forced to surrender to the Duke of Lorraine in April 1468 after a siege of several months. Once the war ended, Torroella held rights over the town and rebuilt the walls. The current church, Gothic and fortified, was built in 1507.

The town suffered further in later conflicts: it was probably taken by Castilian troops of Philip IV during the Guerra dels Segadors in 1640, and in 1675 it was raided by French forces under Marshal Schömberg. From the eighteenth century the nearby settlement of L'Escala grew into a more viable port and eventually replaced Sant Martí as the municipal centre. The old town shrank, many houses fell. Since the 1950s, partly driven by tourism, the historic core has been restored, with many buildings converted into second homes and new residential development built outside the walls.

Inside the medieval walls stand the Church of Sant Martí d'Empúries, the castle, the walls themselves, the Casa del Servei Forestal, and the Jardí Víctor Català. Outside the walls, the Roman and Greek ruins of Empúries are nearby, along with the Hostal Empúries and the chapel of Santa Margarida d'Empúries.