Calle de Játiva

When this corner of Adelfas was laid out, its streets were named after Valencian towns, and Játiva took its place here, the city that today spells its name Xàtiva. The place name is among the oldest on the peninsula: the Iberians called it Saiti, Latin turned it into Saetabis and Arabic into Šāṭiba. Catullus already praised the fine linen cloths of Saetabis in his verses. The episode that marked the city came in 1707. Játiva sided with Archduke Charles in the War of the Spanish Succession, and Philip V ordered it burned and its people deported. The king renamed it Colonia Nueva de San Felipe, and only in 1811 did it recover its name. The symbolic revenge took two centuries. In the mid-twentieth century, the curator of the local museum took down the king’s portrait and hung it upside down. There it still hangs, head first, the Bourbon who ordered the city burned.