Xàtiva (Spanish: Játiva) is a town near Valencia with a long and distinguished history. It's name is itself pre-Roman; in the Iberian language it was known as Saiti, which the Romans latinized into Saetabis. The Roman city was on the important Via Augusta, which stretched 1,500km from Cadiz at the tip of the Hispania province, running up the East coast of the Iberian peninsular to the Pyrenees, and connecting Cartegena, Xàtiva, Valencia, Sagunto, Tarragona, Barcelona, and Girona with the Via Domitia and eventually to Rome. Xàtiva was famous in Roman times for its flax production and the manufacture of linen fabrics, and is mentioned by the poet Gaius Valerius Catullus (84-54 BC).
After the Muslim conquest of 711, the city was calle مَدينَة شاطِبَة (madīnat Ŝāţibat, usually transcribed as Medina Xáteba). The Arabs brought paper manufacturing technology to Xàtiva, and the city became a pioneer of paper manufacture and thence writing and learning in Europe.
Xàtiva was conquered and re-Christianised by James I of Aragon in 1240, but the mosque and Arabic population were respected until the sixteenth century.
Xàtiva is the birthplace of two popes, Callixtus III and Alexander VI, and also the painter José Ribera (Lo Spagnoletto).
