Ruta de la Plata

This Noble, Loyal and Benign City was founded in the year 1186 by the King who ennobled it and impressed on its silver coat of arms UT PLACEAT DEO ET HOMINIBUS FOR THE PLEASURE OF GOD AND MEN. In 1189, Pope Clement III granted the city its bishopric.

Its military character and optimum strategic position, together with the need for reconquest of the Castillian King, propitiated the fortification of the city at the end of the 12th century with the building of the city walls and the strengthening of the barbican with 78 turrets and the construction of the nowadays inexistent Alcázar (fortress).

The construction of the Old Cathedral also commenced in the same century, as well as the appearance of the first Palaces and noble mansions, of which a good number still remain. From their beginnings, the Knights of Plasencia participated in numerous battles such as the Batalla del Castillo del puente del Congosto, those of Alardos and Navas de Tolosa, as well as in the taking of the city of Baeza or the reconquest of the city of Seville by Fernando III el Santo.

Zealous of the freedom it lost in 1442 in favour of the Demesne of the Zúñigas, it lived through the turbulences of the epoch until recovering its freedom in Octobre 1488, when Fernando el Católico swore at the cathedral gates to always defend the freedom and charter of Plasencia.

Plasencia was also linked to the discord over the struggle for succession of Enrique IV of Castille, its nobles backing Juana la Beltraneja due to the fact that in May 1475 she decided to establish the court in the Palacio de las Argollas; the King of Portugal, Alfonso V, arriving in the city in the same month.

The Portuguese King was to marry his niece Doña Juana here with the support of the citys nobles. However, given that the marriage e due to their not obtaining a Papal dispensation of kinship, the nobles, like all those of the area, received the punishment they merited of having the tops of all their palace towers lopped off, losing a third of their height.

The 16th and 17th centuries marked the high point in the towns history. It contributed through its sons to the discovery, conquest and evangelisation of the New World. Important charitable and cultural institutions founded and the city left us monuments that move us still today, above all the New or Plateresque Cathedral, commenced in 1498 by the bishop Don Gutiérrez Álvarez de Toledo, son of the first Dukes of Alba, the Aqueduct or the Palace of the Marquis of Mirabel It even had Universities, which depended on the Dominicans and the Jesuits.

In 1901, Queen Maria Cristina granted it the title of  LA MUY BENÉFICA (THE MOST CHARITABLE), due to its humanitarian behaviour towards the repatriated soldiers from the war with Cuba in 1898.