Casa de la Vila – Montserrat family home

14th C.

The building we know today as the Casa de la Vila (Town Hall) was once the home of the Montserrat family. In 1815, Anton de Vilallonga donated it to the town and since then it is where the Town Council has met.

Keywords: Middle Ages, Gothic, Renaissance, manor houses, Town Hall.

La plaça del Sitjar

The current Plaça Major (Main Square) was also known as the Plaça del Sitjar, or Square of the Silos due to the silos and grain stores it held. From the eighteenth century onwards, it formed La Selva’s heart, where the houses of the town’s elite – the Vallcorba, Vilanova, Guimerà, Montserrat and Grimau families – were located. It was also where most festivals were held and, from 1815 onwards, where the Casa de la Vila was located.

The Montserrat family home

The current Casa de la Vila (Town Hall) belonged to Joan de Montserrat from 1502 onwards, when he bought it from Bernat Vergonyós, who was a bell founder. The building was handed through several family lines and in 1815, Magí Anton de Vilallonga, the Montserrat family’s heir, donated it to the Town Council. Up until then, the councillors used to meet in a house on Regomir Street. The building displays several architectural elements that characterise it as a Renaissance mansion. The crest that presides over the entrance portal is that of the Montserrat family from the early seventeenth century.

The Modern Council

From 1815 onwards, the Town Council began permanently meeting in the Montserrat mansion. It consisted of the first floor: containing the meeting hall, the mayor’s office and the porters’ room; and the ground floor: holding the weights office, stables and a cell. Since 1815, the building has been the seat of municipal government, featuring in La Selva’s foremost public affairs throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries – events such as the 1868 Revolution, proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic on 14 April 1931, use as the headquarters of the Committee of Antifascist Militias during the 1936 Revolution and recovery of the democratic institutions in 1979.