Vicente Blasco Ibáñez (1867-1928), the most renowned Valencian novelist, wrote his novel “The Pope of the Sea” in 1925.
Follow on this literary route the footsteps of Claudio Borja and the beautiful Rosaura through the Peñíscola of almost 100 years ago. Investigate alongside the protagonists of Blasco Ibáñez’s novel the final years of the Pope of the Sea in our city.
“The flies, ladies of the town, when repelled from the streets, entered stables and dwellings.”
Relive the arrival of these two travelers to the Peñíscola of the early 20th century. Discover its secrets, its settings: the castle, the washhouses, the fishermen and their nets, the Bufador, the walls, the worn stones of its pavement…
“—And was it in this beautiful place where they burned the friar who tried to kill the Pope Luna?—asked Rosaura.
—Yes, here they had burned the friar as a “poisoner and necromancer,” as they called him in the trial.”
Did you know that…
Friar Paladio Calvet and Domingo Dalava tried to resolve the Great Western Schism by assassinating Pope Luna with a cake poisoned with arsenic?
One of the poisoners managed to escape, but Friar Calvet, a Benedictine monk from the convent of Bañolas, was burned alive on the beach of the Peñíscola isthmus. Viciana, in the 16th century, had still seen a stone marker indicating the place of execution.
They almost succeeded, but Pope Luna managed to survive thanks to an infusion of medicinal herbs, Pope Luna’s tisane. Savor it on this route.
Book now
