Villarejo de Salvanés

The earliest written record of Villarejo de Salvanés dates to April 1099, when King Alfonso VI of León granted the valley of Salvanés and surrounding lands to the Church of Toledo. The town's military history began in earnest in 1174, when Alfonso VIII of Castile gave the Castle of La Alharilla to Pedro Fernández de Fuente Escalada, Master of the Order of Santiago. By 1240 the Order had a commander in place at Salvanés, and by the end of the medieval period the Encomienda of Villarejo de Salvanés had risen to become the head of the Encomienda Mayor of Castilla within the Order of Santiago.

In 1545 the post of Grand Commander of Castile was held by Juan de Zúñiga Avellaneda y Velasco, a figure of considerable reach: he was a son of the Second Count of Miranda del Castañar, tutor to the future Philip II, and captain of the guard to Emperor Charles V. His son, Luis de Requesens y Zúñiga, would go on to serve as deputy to Don Juan of Austria at the Battle of Lepanto, and it was he who later ordered a sanctuary built in Villarejo to honour the victory over the Ottoman fleet.

By the mid-19th century the town had a recorded population of around 2,927 inhabitants. It appears in Pascual Madoz's monumental geographical dictionary of Spain. In January 1866 it became the scene of a failed military uprising when General Prim rose against the O'Donnell government and the Isabelline regime — an attempt that came to nothing but lodged the town in the political history of the period.

Villarejo de Salvanés was declared a Historic Site in 1974 on the strength of three monuments that stand close together in the town: the Keep (Torre del Homenaje), the Church of San Andrés Apóstol, and the Casa de la Tercia. The town is also recognised as one of the Villas de Madrid.

The Keep is described as a unique example of its kind in Spain. It belonged to the defensive network protecting the old Camino de Toledo and the Senda Galiana, a Roman road linking Gaul and Hispania that remained in use through the Middle Ages. Beyond its military role, the castle served as the seat of the Special Tribunal of the Military Orders, sheltered the guerrilla fighter El Empecinado as a refugee in the 19th century, and was the starting point of one of General Prim's failed uprisings.

The Casa de la Tercia was built by the Encomienda Mayor of Castilla. Its name refers to the practice of storing one third of the tributes collected for the personal use of the Commander. The building has two floors, a colonnaded courtyard, and underground cellars that once held large jars of wine. Subterranean passages connect it to both the church and the castle. It served as lodging for the early Grand Commanders before a palace was built for them, and it temporarily housed the statue of the Virgin of Lepanto while her dedicated sanctuary was under construction.

That sanctuary — the Santuario de Nuestra Señora de la Victoria — was begun in 1573 on the orders of Luis de Requesens, fulfilling a vow he made before the Battle of Lepanto on 7 October 1571. Before the battle he had prayed to the Virgin of the Rosary, promising a convent in Villarejo if the Christian fleet prevailed. Two traditions exist about the origin of the statue: one holds that it sailed with Requesens himself; another that it was the image before which Pope Pius V prayed in Rome during the battle. The architect Pedro de Tolosa drew up plans for the full convent complex in 1580. The building was later remodelled in the Baroque style and today contains a significant library. Its interior, on a Latin cross plan with a barrel vault and lunettes, is decorated with contemporary paintings by Rafael Pedrós, including canvases of the Blesseds José de San Jacinto and Nicanor Ascanio. The current statue of the Virgin, kept in the camarín, is the work of a Valencian workshop and dates from 1939, though the figure of the Christ Child is original. The sanctuary is communal property, administered jointly by the Comisaría de la Virgen de la Victoria, the town council, the parish, and the Brotherhood of Our Lady of Victory. The monastic cloister and most of the friars' quarters were converted in the 1970s into a vocational education centre.

The parish church of San Andrés Apóstol dates from the 16th century and suffered serious damage during the Civil War.