The frightening images caused by the cold fall in the province of Valencia unfortunately find parallels in the past. Archeology has revealed that the city of Turia suffered flooding between the founding of the settlement, in 138 BC, and the 3rd century AD. However, the first news about this. disastrous floods They appear in medieval times, once King James I conquered the town and incorporated it into the dominions of the Crown of Aragon. Two of the first took place in 1321 and 1328 and caused the collapse of many houses inside and outside the walls.
But one of the most catastrophic events took place September 27, 1517. Valencia was preparing for a week of celebrations to celebrate the arrival of the new king in Spain: the future emperor Charles V had landed on the 20th in a small town in Asturias, an event that would change the history of Spain. According to the chronicles, rain fell on the city of Turia. for over a month and that afternoon, it finally stopped. What could have been interpreted by the Valencians as a positive omen for the new monarch was only a mirage.
This December 27, it was recorded a double avenue of the river: the first between 3 and 4 p.m. and the second at dusk, around 9 a.m. According to climatologist José Ángel Núñez Mora, several documents have been preserved that expose the events of that tragic day. He Book of consular celebrations or daily memories of Valencia tells that Hundreds of houses collapsed and there were hundreds of victims. The force of the flood caused the collapse of three of the five bridges that the city had at that time: the Real, the Serranos and the Nou; and took the parapets of the Trinity.
According to the Free from Antichytesa work which brings together significant news and events from the 16th and 17th centuries and preserved in the Cathedral of Valencia, details that “the river of Valencia became so swollen that it rose above the bridges and entered [en la ciudad]”. Other towns in the region, such as Sumacàrcer, Gavarda, Alzira or Algemesí, were also affected by the torrential rains: the flooding of the Júcar caused the collapse of hundreds of houses in these places. More at inland, in Requena, affected by the DANA of those days, 1517 was remembered as “the years of aguaducho”.
King Charles V quickly received news of the hydrological disaster. On October 3, the local Jurors sent a letter to the sovereign in which they mentioned the damage caused by the water: “Dumenge prop Pasat, which contains the XXVII of the Prop Pasat of the month of September, at the four hours of migjorn, took revenge in a crude manner in the Riu daquesta Ciutat, and overturned many diverse cases, and in the streets of the city by semblance: three of the strap bridges which, hia, overturned the three“.
“In the contemporary history of Valencia, since the beginning of the 19th century, there is no episode of rain that has had a spatial extension similar to that of the flood of 1517, simultaneously covering the two great rivers of the province and the “inside the province,” explains Núñez Mora. Indeed, the illustrious climatologist Inocencio Font declared that this flood “was a consequence of one of the largest floods recorded in the last thousand years“.
The writer and historian Gaspar Escolano (1560-1619) brought together in one of his works a legend born following the event known as “the beast of St. Michael” and which was part of the Valencian popular memory for centuries. On September 28, some neighbors claimed having seen a lion roar in the streets of the city that appeared and disappeared. The chronicler thought “this was the striking angel, commissioner of God’s justice, to whom the punishment of our city had been entrusted. But whoever he was, he still had the name “Lion of Germany.”
