Renaissance & Early Modern Perpignan
The Cathedral Gets a Facelift – 1500s
By the early 16th century, Perpignan was firmly back under Spanish rule and part of the Crown of Aragon, later absorbed into Habsburg Spain. The town was still proudly Catalan in identity, but its architecture began to reflect Renaissance tastes.
The Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist, originally built in the Gothic style, was slowly remodelled. A massive baroque altarpiece was installed, chapels were extended and the cathedral square became a gathering place for markets, performances and parades.
Nearby, the Campo Santo, Perpignan’s cloister cemetery, remained in use. It’s still the largest and oldest cloître-cimetière in France, and today, it hosts concerts and open-air theatre.
Religious Trouble Brewing – 1540s
As the Protestant Reformation spread across Europe, things got tense in Catholic Perpignan. In 1546, over 50 Protestants were executed in the nearby town of Céret and the Spanish Inquisition’s influence was never far away.
Fortified and Focused – 1500s–1600s
Perpignan was a border city and borders meant battles. Throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, the city’s fortifications were upgraded again and again with thicker walls, wider moats and a star-shaped bastions.
The Castillet, once a medieval gatehouse, was now used as a prison and fortress. Inside, graffiti from the 1600s can still be seen today, scratched into the stone by prisoners.
Perpignan's street layout became more military and certain buildings were designated for billeting troops. Even peaceful squares had cannon placements.
The Camisards and the Prison of the Citadel – 1703
In the early 1700s, many Protestant Camisard rebels from the Cévennes were arrested. Over 800 of them, men, women and children, were deported to Perpignan’s citadel and held in appalling conditions without trial for years.
The prison commander even refused to release those granted pardons. Survivors later described tiny cells, constant hunger and children dying in the dark. It’s one of the grimmer chapters in the city’s religious history and rarely remembered.
The French Take Over for Good – 1659
After centuries of conflict between France and Spain, the Treaty of the Pyrenees was signed in 1659, and Perpignan officially became part of France. For many Catalans, it was a betrayal. Spain had ceded the whole of Roussillon to its northern neighbour.
The French king, Louis XIV, sent his engineers to strengthen the walls even further under the direction of Vauban, the great military architect. The city was transformed into a fully-fledged French garrison town.
Enter the Marshal – 1700s
Perpignan's most eccentric French ruler was probably Marshal de Mailly who governed the city in the mid-18th century. A man of theatrical tastes, he widened boulevards, built a theatre and reportedly had a secret passage from his private residence to the opera.
A City of Contradictions – Late 1700s
By the end of the 18th century, Perpignan was a mix of old and new. Baroque façades lined narrow medieval streets. Priests shared corners with freethinking students. Some families still spoke Catalan only while others proudly called themselves French.