Monastery of la Murta

The Monastery of Santa Maria de la Murta is a former monastery of the order of the Hieronymites located in the Valley of La Murta in Alzira (Valencia), Spain.Throughout its history was an important emporium of culture and spirituality and centre of pilgrimage of the royalty, the aristocracy and influential religious characters. It was acquired by the City Hall of Alzira in 1989, and from 1995, is in recovery and restoration both the convent and its environment of La Murta Valley.OriginsIn 568, under the reign of Liuvigild, San Donato and his hermits who had fled from Africa founded in the Valley, then called Valley of "Miralles', a servetano monastery. The Arab invasion in 711 left him devastated and the hermits were dispersed, the founder dying and being buried in the monastery. However its origins are documented in the manuscript 1773 of the father J.B. Morera, scholar of the archive of the monastery, from the fourteenth, when Arnau de Serra alcireno Knight, Lord of the lands of La Murta, authorization of the King Peter IV of Aragon, donated them to a group of hermits established on the Valley with the condition of founding a religious community.He lived under the rule of the Hieronymites. After professing in Xàbia as monks of the Hieronymites order, Pope Gregory XI granted them the bull to found a monastery in 1376.