The Gothic tower
A square tower surviving from the original fabric.
UnFUG-Fabi — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Charles from Port Chester, New York — CC BY 2.0 · Mark from Brighton — CC BY 2.0 · Mark from Brighton — CC BY 2.0
**A white church with a square tower at the highest point of the fortified town — and its site held a temple and then a mosque** — at the summit of Dalt Vila. Built in the **14th century** in **Catalan Gothic** — ⚠ **plain, solid and sparely ornamented**; ✅ **then largely rebuilt in the 18th century in the Baroque**, **leaving the tower and apse Gothic**. ⚠ **Its site is the story**: **the highest point of the inhabited island** — ✅ **and on it stood **a Phoenician temple, then a Roman one, then a mosque** before the church**; **which is Ibiza's history in miniature**. ✅ **The square in front is the reward**: **an open view over harbour, sea and island**. ✅ **Entry is free.**
A square tower surviving from the original fabric.
An open view over harbour, sea and Formentera.
The surviving Gothic part inside the church.
Placa de la Catedral, 07800 Eivissa, Spain
**Nearly three thousand years — the island was an important trading station long before it was anything else.** ✅ **The founding**: **the Phoenicians founded a settlement on Ibiza around **654 BC**** — ⚠ **as *Ibossim***; **its position ideal as a stage on the sea route between Carthage and the Iberian peninsula**. ✅ **Then the Carthaginians**: ⚠ **the island became wholly Carthaginian**, **and an important centre for the trade in salt, wool and dye**; ✅ **it struck its own coinage**. ⚠ **And its name comes from there**: **most likely from the god **Bes**** — **a Carthaginian protective deity**, **whose figures are found abundantly on the island**. ✅ **The greatest evidence — Puig des Molins**: **a vast necropolis on a hill inside the modern town** — ⚠ **thousands of rock-cut tombs**, **the largest preserved Phoenician-Punic necropolis in the western Mediterranean**. ⚠ **Why here**: ✅ **the Phoenicians believed the island free of venomous animals** — **so it became a favoured burial place**; **with the dead brought from elsewhere too**. ✅ **Then Rome (123 BC), the Vandals, Byzantium, the Muslims (902–1235), and Aragon.** ⚠ **And all of them lie under Dalt Vila.**
