Aragon Guide

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  Barbastro

Located in the Spanish province of Huesca in the Aragon Pyrenees. The city (originally, perhaps, Bergidum or Bergiduna) is at the junction of the rivers Cinca and Vero. In the time of the Romans it was a part of Hispania Citerior. It was taken by the Arabs, under the leadership of Muza (711), and the name Barbaschter given to it, from which the name Barbastrum, according to the generally accepted opinion, is derived.

It was held by the Saracens until about the year 1063, when it was retaken by Don Sancho Ramirez, King of Aragon. The Arabs once more obtained possession, but Aremengol IV, Count of Urgel, reconquered it, and after a third Arab conquest it was restored in 1101, by Pedro I, King of Aragon. Many provincial and diocesan councils have been held in the city; the Cortes of Spain has met there occasionally, and during one of its sessions, King Ramiro, called the Monk, abdicated the crown (1134).

Bartolome and Lupercio Argensola, historians and classical Spanish writers, were born in Barbastro. Bortolome is the author of the "Historia de las Molucas", "Anales de Aragon", and "Regla de Perfeccion"; Lupercio wrote three tragedies, "Isabel", "Jebe", and "Alejandro", and some poems published with others written by his brother Bartolome. The cathedral, the episcopal palace, the seminary, and the college of the Clerks Regular of the Pious Schools, or Piarists, are among the most noted buildings in the city.