Segovia


Segovia is a city in the autonomous community of Castile and León, Spain. It is the capital and most populated municipality of the Province of Segovia. Segovia is located in the Inner Plateau of the Iberian Peninsula, near the northern slopes of the Sistema Central mountain range. Housing is nestled on a bend of the Eresma river.
The city is famous for its historic buildings including three main landmarks: its midtown Roman aqueduct, its cathedral, and the Alcázar of Segovia. The city center was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1985.

Etymology

The name of Segovia is of Celtiberian origin. Although historians have linked its old name to Segobriga, the discovery of the original Roman city of Segobriga near Saelices discarded this possibility. The name of "Segovia" is mentioned by Livy in the context of the Sertorian War.
Under the Romans and Moors, the city was called Segovia and respectively.

Geography

Location

Segovia is located near the Eresma rivercourse, close to the northwestern slope of the Sierra de Guadarrama mountains, a subrange of the Sistema Central.
The main route of the Camino de Santiago de Madrid passes through the city.

Climate

Segovia has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate bordering on a cold semi-arid climate, resulting from the high altitude and the distance from the coast. The average annual temperature is, with an average low in January of and an average high in July of. The annual precipitation range from 400 to 500 mm per year in the lower plains, and can reach above 1000 mm in the nearby mountainous area of Sierra de Guadarrama, as rainfall and snowfall is more frequent up the mountains. Decent showers coming from summer thunderstorms help the mountainous area of the province to be rainier than average than most of the central Spanish plateau, which gives the area lush vegetation. All of this make the province a damp corner in the context of the region. The predominant forms of vegetation in the mountainous areas include pine, evergreen, oak, beech and juniper.

Population centers

Aside from the main city, there are a number of other villages within the municipality of Segovia.
The first recorded mention of a settlement in what is today Segovia was a Celtic possession. Control later passed into the hands of the Romans. The city is a possible site of the battle in 75 BC where Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius was victorious over Quintus Sertorius and Hirtuleius. Hirtuleius died in the fighting. During the late Roman period, the settlement belonged to one of numerous contemporary Latin convents.
Later records traditionally indicate that the townsite was uninhabited at the height of the 11th century. The circumstances behind the resettlement of the northern Meseta beyond the Douro under the advancing Christian kingdoms in the middle ages is, however, a moot point in historiography. Short of the existence of any verified urban layout in the townsite, possible early eleventh century Berber or Mozarab settlements in the area seem likely.
After the conquest of Toledo by Alfonso VI of León and Castile, Segovia was resettled with Christians from the north of the Iberian peninsula and beyond the Pyrenees, providing it with a significant sphere of influence whose boundaries crossed the Sierra de Guadarrama and the Tagus.
Segovia's position on trading routes made it an important centre of trade in wool and textiles. The end of the Middle Ages saw something of a golden age for Segovia, with a growing Jewish population and the creation of a foundation for a powerful cloth industry. Several splendid works of Gothic architecture were also completed during this period. Notably, Isabella I was proclaimed queen of Castile in the church of San Miguel de Segovia on December 13, 1474.
Segovienne was a local flannel cloth used for upholstery in the 14th to 17th centuries. It was a twilled weave structure with a hairy surface produced by using Spanish wool.
Like most Castilian textile centres, Segovia joined the Revolt of the Comuneros under the command of Juan Bravo. Despite the defeat of the Communities, the city's resultant economic boom continued into the sixteenth century, its population rising to 27,000 in 1594. Then, as well as almost all the cities of Castile, Segovia entered a period of decline. Only a century later in 1694, the population had been reduced to only 8,000 inhabitants. In the early eighteenth century, Segovia attempted to revitalize its textile industry, with little success. In the second half of the century, Charles III made another attempt to revive the region's commerce; it took the form of the Royal Segovian Wool Manufacturing Company. However, the lack of competitiveness of production caused the crown withdraw its sponsorship in 1779. In 1764, the Royal School of Artillery, the first military academy in Spain, was opened. This academy remains present in the city today. In 1808, Segovia was sacked by French troops during the War of Independence. During the First Carlist War, troops under the command of Don Carlos, Count of Molina unsuccessfully attacked the city. During the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century, Segovia experienced a demographic recovery that was the result of relative economic stability.

Demographics

The population growth experienced during the nineteenth century accelerated steadily beginning around 1920: 16,013 inhabitants recorded that year, 33,360 in 1960, and 53,237 in 1981. Since the 1980s growth has slowed markedly: 55,586 in 2004 and 56,047 in 2007.
As of 1 January 2019, there were 11% of inhabitants who were foreigners – 4.478% coming from other countries in Europe, 2.37% being Africans, 3.7% being from the Americas, and 0.435% being Asians.

Heritage

World Heritage City

In 1985 the old city of Segovia and its Aqueduct were declared World Heritage Sites by UNESCO. The old city contains a multitude of historic buildings both civil and religious, including a large number of buildings of Jewish origin, notably within the old Jewish Quarter. One of the most historically important Jewish sites is the Jewish cemetery, El Pinarillo.
Among the most important monuments in the city are:
  • The Aqueduct of Segovia, located in Plaza del Azoguejo, is the defining historical feature of the city, dating from the late 1st or early 2nd century AD. Like a number of other aqueducts in Spain, Segovia's Roman-built aqueduct receives attention for being one of the "extraordinary engineering accomplishments" existing in the country, wrote Alejandro Lapunzina in Reference Guides to National Architecture: Architecture of Spain. It is still used to deliver drinking water. "The aqueduct of Segovia is – because of its long span, architectural beauty, uncharacteristic slenderness, and dramatic presence in the center of a dense urban fabric – the most impressive Roman structure in Spain, and one of the most famous among the numerous aqueducts built by the Romans throughout their vast Empire," Lapunzina wrote. It consists of about 25,000 granite blocks held together without any mortar, and spans 818 meters with more than 170 arches, the highest being 29 metres high.
file:Segovia - Alcázar de Segovia 22 2017-10-24.jpg|thumb|left|The Alcázar de Segovia.
  • The Alcazar of Segovia, the royal palace built on a stone peninsula between the rivers Eresma and Clamores, is documented for the first time in 1122, although it may have existed earlier. It was one of the favored residences of the kings of Castile, built in the transition from Romanesque architecture to Gothic and Mudéjar. The building is structured around two courtyards and has two towers, and a keep. It was a favourite residence of Alfonso X the Wise and Henry IV, and Isabella the Catholic was crowned Queen of Castile in Segovia's Plaza Mayor. Devastated by a fire in 1862, it was later rebuilt. It now houses the General Militar de Segovia archive and museum of the Royal School of Artillery, managed by the Board of the Alcazar.
  • The Segovia Cathedral, the last Gothic cathedral built in Spain. It is considered a masterpiece of Basque-Castilian Gothic architecture and is known as "The Lady of Cathedrals." Juan Gil de Hontañón, Rodrigo Gil de Hontañón, and other masters of Spanish architecture worked on the construction. It was consecrated in 1768 and is 105 meters long, 50 metres wide and 33 m high in the nave, has 18 chapels and has three doors: El Perdón, San Frutos and San Geroteo.
  • The Walls of Segovia existed when Alfonso VI of León and Castile retook the city from the Arabs. Alfonso had them enlarged, and also increased its perimeter to 3 kilometres, with eight towers, five gates, and several doors. It was built mainly of granite blocks but also reused gravestones from the old Roman necropolis. The wall encircles the historic quarter and currently has three gates: San Cebrián; Santiago, built in the Mudéjar style; and San Andrés, gateway to the Jewish quarter; and the breaches of Consuelo, San Juan, the Sun, and the Moon.

    Religious architecture

Churches and chapels

The city maintains an important collection of Romanesque churches of both stone and brick, which include the churches of San Esteban, San Millán, San Martín, la Santísima Trinidad, San Andrés, San Clemente, Santos Justo y Pastor, Iglesia de la Vera Cruz, and San Salvador.
The old main synagogue is a former synagogue, converted into a convent after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492.

Monasteries and convents

The city of Segovia preserved also several monasteries and convents with active religious life: