Valenciaולנסיה

Spain

Valencia, a Mediterranean port in eastern Spain, was founded as the Roman colony of Valentia in 138 BCE. Taken by Muslim forces around 714, it became, as Balansiya, part of al-Andalus and later capital of an independent taifa kingdom; El Cid held it from 1094 to 1102, and James I of Aragon took it for good in 1238. The poet-philosopher Solomon ibn Gabirol probably died there in the eleventh century, and from 1239 the Jews had a walled quarter until it was destroyed in the pogrom of 1391. Alfons de Borja was bishop of Valencia from 1429 until his election as Pope Callixtus III in 1455. The Qur'an reciter al-Shatibi (d. 1194) was born nearby.

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