Barbera del Aragonés

The Cross patée of the Temple is the family emblem of the Aragonés, which is why we find it on different objects in this house-museum. According to the books of arms, the Templar Juan Aragonés arrived in La Vila with the king Jaime I in the 13th century. His descendants, who held important political, military and religious positions until the 19th century, were the owners of this 17th century country house transformed nowadays into a romantic palace.

The social importance of the family can be noticed in the furniture of different styles (Elizabethan, Alfonsino, Art Deco) some of the furniture was presented at the Universal Exhibition in London in 1851, and of course, in the very rich and extraordinary nineteenth-century domestic goods from different origins such as British crockery or exclusive boxes of cookies bought by the British Royal Family.

The exhibition of this house-museum also allows visitors to learn about life more than two hundred years ago. The clothing, customs, recipes, cooking utensils and everyday items, nowadays disappeared. Such as the “riurau”, a space situated on the second floor used to dry raisins, and behind it is the “cambra” (a space for agricultural storage). This riurau is the southernmost known to date, and it evidences the importance of wine and raisin production in the region until the end of the 19th century.

The stables of the former country house have been transformed into “l’Espai d’Art Contemporani”, an exhibition space that hosts exhibitions of different artistic disciplines.

The fields that used to surround the house became gardens with an open-air auditorium, children’s play area and cafeteria for neighbors and visitors. It is also remarkable the “archaeological garden”, where some Iberian burial mounds, found in some archaeological excavations in the area, have been relocated.