Museu de l'Almodí (Xàtiva Municipal Museum)
Installed in a 16th-century grain warehouse on Plaça de l'Almudí, Xàtiva's municipal museum punches well above its size — it holds Roman mosaics, Iberian bronzes, Gothic altarpieces and the city's most famous artefact: the upside-down portrait of Felipe V, displayed in deliberate inversion as a permanent act of civic defiance.
The collection highlights
The ground floor Roman section contains a remarkably well-preserved mosaic floor excavated from a villa on the outskirts of the city, along with funerary steles and bronze surgical instruments that speak to Saetabis (the Roman name for Xàtiva) being a prosperous provincial town on the Via Augusta. The Iberian bronzes, including a small horse-rider figurine, are among the finest in the Valencian Community.
Upstairs, the medieval and early modern galleries trace the city's role as a papal nursery — Rodrigo Borgia (Pope Alexander VI) and his nephew Alfons de Borja (Pope Calixtus III) were both born in the Xàtiva area, and the museum holds portraits, documents and devotional objects connected to the Borgia family that you will not find assembled anywhere else outside Rome.
The upside-down king
The portrait of Felipe V — a copy of a formal royal painting, hung inverted since the 18th century — is displayed with a small explanatory panel recounting how the king ordered Xàtiva burned and its population dispersed in 1707 as punishment for supporting the Habsburg pretender during the War of the Spanish Succession. The city was temporarily renamed San Felipe. Locals have never entirely forgiven him.
The museum is small enough to cover thoroughly in 90 minutes and the staff are genuinely knowledgeable. Ask at the desk about temporary exhibitions, which often focus on local archaeological finds that have not yet made it into the permanent collection.
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