History of Barcelona, from Barcino to today

01

Barcino, the Roman colony

Barcelona began as Colonia Iulia Augusta Faventia Paterna Barcino, founded in the time of Augustus on Mons Taber, a low rise by the sea. The Barcelona History Museum (MUHBA) places it in the 1st century BC; most authors give a date around 10 BC.

More of that walled city survives than you might think: columns, stretches of wall and whole streets beneath the ground of the Barri Gòtic.

• Temple of Augustus

  Roman · Barri Gòtic

  Four Corinthian columns from a 1st-century BC temple dedicated to the imperial cult, at the highest point of Mons Taber. It is one of the MUHBA sites.

  C/ Paradís, 10

• MUHBA Plaça del Rei

  Roman, Visigothic and medieval · Barri Gòtic

  More than 4,000 m² of remains beneath the square: streets and buildings of Barcino, the 7th-century Visigothic city and, above them, the old palace of the count-kings.

  Plaça del Rei, s/n (entrance on C/ del Veguer)

02

Visigoths, al-Andalus and the Franks

In 415 the Visigothic king Ataulf settled in Barcino with his court, and was murdered there that same year. Around 717–720 the city became part of al-Andalus; the sources do not allow the exact year to be fixed.

In 801 Louis the Pious, King of Aquitaine and son of Charlemagne, took Barcelona after a siege, and Bera became the first Frankish count. Between 878 and 897 the county was ruled by Wilfred the Hairy (Guifré el Pilós), whose descendants would inherit it. In 985 Almanzor stormed and sacked the city, and around 987–988 Count Borrell II stopped renewing his vassalage to the new Frankish king, Hugh Capet: this is regarded as the start of the county’s de facto independence.

03

The county and the Crown of Aragon

In 1137, at Barbastro, Ramon Berenguer IV agreed his betrothal to Petronilla of Aragon, who was barely a year old; the wedding took place in Lleida in 1150. From that dynastic union came what would be called the Crown of Aragon. Their son, Alfonso the Chaste, inherited the county in 1162 and, shortly afterwards, the kingdom when his mother renounced it: he was the first ruler of Barcelona and Aragon at the same time.

The city governed itself: in 1249 James I granted the privilege usually taken as the origin of municipal government, and in 1265 the council was fixed at a hundred leading citizens, the Consell de Cent, which would govern Barcelona until 1714. This was the age of the great Gothic churches.

• Basílica de Santa Maria del Mar

  Catalan Gothic · La Ribera · El Born

  Built in just 54 years, from 1329 to 1383, which is rare for a great Gothic church. It is the church of the Ribera, the old seafaring quarter.

04

1714: the siege and the Nueva Planta

In the War of the Spanish Succession, Barcelona held out through a siege of some 13 months and fell to the Bourbon troops on 11 September 1714. The Nueva Planta decree of 16 January 1716 abolished the existing self-governing institutions, the Consell de Cent among them. That same year work began on the military Citadel (Ciutadella), for which part of the Ribera district was demolished.

• El Born. Museu d'Història de Barcelona

  1714 and the 19th century · El Born

  Beneath the old Born market (Josep Fontserè, opened in 1876), the remains of some 55 houses and streets demolished after 1714 to build the Citadel came to light in 2002.

  Plaça Comercial, 12

05

Down with the walls: Renaixença and Eixample

The 19th century changed the scale of the city. The Renaixença took Aribau’s ode “La pàtria” (1833) as its symbolic starting point, and in 1859 the Floral Games (Jocs Florals) were restored. Between 1854 and 1856 the medieval walls were pulled down, opening up the plain for the city to grow.

Ildefons Cerdà’s Extension Plan was approved by royal decree on 7 August 1859 and confirmed on 31 May 1860, even though the City Council preferred Rovira i Trias’s plan. So the Eixample was born: the grid of streets that today links, among many other places, Passeig de Gràcia and the Sagrada Família, and where Carrer de Mallorca runs.

In 1869 the Citadel was handed over to the city and demolished; in its place came the park that hosted the 1888 Universal Exhibition.

What to see today in each neighbourhood, from the Eixample to Gràcia or el Born, is in The most beautiful neighbourhoods in Barcelona.

• Parc de la Ciutadella and Arc de Triomf

  18th century and 1888 · Ciutat Vella

  The Bourbon fortress became the park of the 1888 Exhibition, with the Arc de Triomf as its gateway.

  Passeig de Lluís Companys (Arc de Triomf)

Cerdà’s grid, approved in 1859, is still the plan you walk through in the Eixample.

06

Modernisme and the modern city

On 19 March 1882 the foundation stone of the Sagrada Família was laid, to a design by Villar; Gaudí took over the work in 1883. Modernisme reached its height in the early 20th century: Domènech i Montaner built the Palau de la Música Catalana (1905–1908) and Gaudí the Casa Milà, La Pedrera (1906–1912), in the Eixample.

Not everything was splendour. In 1909 the Tragic Week, an anti-militarist and anticlerical revolt after reservists were shipped off to Morocco, ended with churches and convents burned and five people executed by firing squad. Twenty years later, the 1929 International Exhibition transformed Montjuïc; it opened on 19 May 1929 and closed on 15 January 1930.

• Casa Milà, La Pedrera

  Modernisme · Dreta de l'Eixample

  Apartment building by Gaudí for Pere Milà, on Cerdà’s grid. A UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1984.

  Passeig de Gràcia, 92 (corner of C/ Provença)

07

Civil War, democracy and the Olympic Games

During the Civil War (1936–1939) the city suffered air raids and more than a thousand shelters were built; Franco’s troops entered Barcelona on 26 January 1939.

With democracy, the first municipal elections were held on 3 April 1979, and on 19 April the first democratic city council was formed, with Narcís Serra as mayor. The 1992 Olympic Games, from 25 July to 9 August, transformed the waterfront and Montjuïc, and in 2004 the Universal Forum of Cultures opened a new site at the mouth of the Besòs.

• MUHBA Refugi 307

  Civil War · Poble-sec

  An air-raid shelter dug by local residents into the slope of Montjuïc: almost 400 metres of tunnels. Guided visits only.

  C/ Nou de la Rambla, 175