RASGO - Red de Juderías de España. Caminos de Sefarad

Upper Palaeolithic rock art and arrowheads, remains of Neolithic pottery in the Cave of Maltravieso, warrior stelae from the Iron Age and boars – bulls or wild boars – traces of the Vetons, are some of the marks left by the cultures that have lived in Caceres.

Panorámica de Cáceres

From the Roman colony Norba Caesarina there are remains of wall, the Arch del Cristo or Gate del Río, inscriptions and the sculpture of the Genio de la Colonia. The city was founded by the political and military Roman Cayo Norbano Flaco in the 1st century B.C., who was employed by Lucius Cornelius Balbus.

But it wasn’t until Muslim domination and above all, the Almohade era, when Caceres became an important defensive enclave. The wall was rebuilt, with towers, and the alcazaba (citadel) was built, where there are now the plazas of San Mateo and Las Veletas, with an impressive cistern.

It was King Alfonso IX of Leon, in 1229, who granted it a fuero (charter) so favourable as to repopulate conflict zones in exchange for lands and privileges. It was then that families from the north of Spain built a large number of the palaces and fortified houses in the squares around the churches of Santa Maria and San Mateo. Many of these buildings lost their defensive nature with the Catholic Kings, becoming symbols of prestige and power.

San Antonio de la Quebrada

The new American lands led Frey Nicolás de Ovando, governor of the Indies; Francisco Pizarro, discoverer of Peru; Orellana, who travelled the River Amazon and other people of Caceres to ennoble the region’s history.

The 17th and 18th centuries were particularly hard due to the plagues, epidemics and economic shortage caused by the war with Portugal and the expulsion of the Moriscos. In 1790, the Royal Court of Extremadura brought with it the jurisdictional unity of the region, a dependent until then of Valladolid and Granada.

Later, in 1833, Caceres was named capital of North Extremadura and the Free University of Education, later the College of the Humanities, was created. In 1881 King Alfonso XII visited the city to open the railway line that connects it with Valencia de Alcantara and a year later Caceres was granted the title of city, until then having been a villa de realengo (town belonging to the Crown).

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