Logroño

Logroño, the capital of the Spanish province of Logroño, on the right bank of the river Ebro and on the Saragossa-Miranda de Ebro railway. Pop. (1900) 19,237. Logroño is an ancient walled town, finely situated on a hill 1204 ft. high. Its bridge of twelve arches across the Ebro was built in 1138, but has frequently been restored after partial destruction by floods. The main street, arcaded on both sides, and the crooked but highly picturesque alleys of the older quarters are in striking contrast with the broad, tree-shaded avenues and squares laid out in modern times. The chief buildings are a bull-ring which accommodates 11,000 spectators, and a church, Santa Maria de Palacio, called “the imperial,” from the tradition that its founder was Constantine the Great (274-337). As the commercial centre of the fertile and well-cultivated plain of the Rioja, Logroño has an important trade in wine.

The district of Logroño was in ancient times inhabited by the Berones or Verones of Strabo and Pliny, and their Varia is to be identified with the modern suburb of the city of Logroño now known as Varea of Barea. Logroño was named by the Romans Juliobriga and afterwards Lucronius. It fell into the hands of the Moors in the 8th century, but was speedily retaken by the Christians, and under the name of Lucronius appears with frequency in medieval history. It was unsuccessfully besieged by the French in 1521, and occupied by them from 1808 to 1813. It was the birthplace of the dumb painter Juan Fernandez Navarrete (1526-1579).