Perpignan

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Perpignan (French: Perpignan; Catalan Perpinyà) is a commune and the préfecture (administrative capital city) of the Pyrénées-Orientales département in southern France. Perpignan was the capital of the former province and county of Roussillon (French Catalonia or Northern Catalonia). It is also capital of the historical Catalonian comarca of Rosselló.

Population (1999): 105,115 (Perpignanais); 163,000 including the suburbs.

History

Though settlement in the area goes back to Roman times, the medieval town of Perpignan seems to have been founded around the beginning of the 10th century (first mentioned in a document as villa Perpiniarum in 927). Soon Perpignan became the capital of the counts of Roussillon. In 1172 Count Gerard II bequeathed his lands to the Counts of Barcelona. Perpignan acquired the institutions of a partly self-governing commune in 1197. French feudal rights over Rousillon were given up by Louis IX in the Treaty of Corbeil (1258).

When James I, the Conqueror, king of Aragon and count of Barcelona, erected the Catalan Kingdom of Majorca in 1276, Perpignan became the capital of the mainland territories of the new state. The succeeding decades are considered the golden age in the history of the city. It prospered as a centre of cloth manufacture, leather work, goldsmiths' work, and other luxury crafts. King Philip III of France died there in 1285, as he was returning from his unsuccessful crusade against the Aragonese Crown.

In 1344 Peter IV of Aragon annexed the Kingdom of Majorca and Perpignan once more became part of the County of Barcelona. A few years later it lost approximatively half of its population owing to the Black Death. It was attacked and occupied by Louis XI of France in 1463; a violent uprising against French rule in 1473 was harshly put down after a long siege, but in 1493 Charles VIII of France, wishing to conciliate Spain in order to free himself to invade Italy, restored it to Ferdinand II of Aragon.

Again besieged and captured by the French during the Thirty Years' War in September 1642, Perpignan was formally ceded by Spain 17 years later in the Treaty of the Pyrenees, and has formed part of France since that time.

Monuments

The cathedral of St John the Baptist was begun in 1324 and finished in 1509. [Cathedral:[link],[link],[link]]

The 13th century castle of the kings of Majorca sits on the high citadel, surrounded by ramparts, reinforced for Louis XI and Charles V, which were updated in the 17th century by Louis XIV's military engineer Vauban.

The walls surrounding the town, which had been designed by Vauban, were razed in 1904 to accommodate urban development.

Economy

Traditional commerce was in wine and olive oil, corks (the cork oak Quercus suber grows in Perpignan's mild climate), wool and leather, and iron. In May 1907 it was a seat of agitation by southern producers for government enforcement of wine quality following a collapse in prices.

Miscellaneous

Perpignan has a close connection with the sculptor Aristide Maillol, who attended school there.

Following a visit in 1963, the Catalan surrealist artist Salvador Dalí declared the city's railway station's toilets, the center of the Universe. Above the station is a monument in Dali's honour, and on the station's ground is painted, in big letters, « perpignan centre du monde » (French for "perpignan centre of the world") [1].

Perpignan is a rugby football stronghold: their rugby union side, USA Perpignan, is a regular competitor in the Heineken Cup, and their rugby league side plays in the Super League under the name Les Catalans.

Births

Perpignan was the birthplace of:

• Hyacinthe Rigaud (1659-1743), who painted the definitive portaits of Louis XIV
• François Arago (1786-1853), the physicist, astronomer and liberal politician, who secured the abolition of slavery in the French colonies in 1853, was born in the nearby village of Estagel and is memorialized in the eponymous Place Arago that bears his statue in the centre of the town.
• Robert Brasillach (1909-1945), pro-Nazi author in Vichy France

Twin towns

• Twin towns:
• * Hanover, Germany, 1960
• * Lancaster, United Kingdom, 1962
• * Lake Charles, Louisiana, United States, 1993
• * Sarasota, Florida, United States, 1995
• * Tyre, Lebanon, 1997

• Partner towns:
• *

Girona, Catalonia, 1988

*

Barcelona, Catalonia, 1994

*

Figueres, Catalonia, 1996

* Ma'alot-Tarshiha, Israel, 1998

* Tavira, Portugal, 2001

• Partner region:
• *

Generalitat de Catalunya, Spain

References

• Alícia Marcet, Histoire de Perpignan, la fidelíssima (1995).

External links