Villafeliche has preserved very well his medieval morphology. Along the Middle Age a nucleus formed important of Moslem population who inhabited the south hillside of the hill of the castle, concerning the mosque and who, turned obligatorily in 1526, kept on occupying the same part of town.

In his city center, we contemplate good examples of architecture popular packed concerning a main street, route of the one that there divide small alleys that lead on the verge of fortitude to us. On the tiled ocres of the housings there raises it tower of the parochial Church of San Miguel, works of the XVIIth century that stands out for being a big volume of formed whitish tonality for three ships and cruise with big dome on this one.


Sights

Ancient train station
He marries of Mr. D. José Martínez "Puchericos"
Castle of Happy Town
The Villafeliz castle - fortitude
Chapel of San Anthony
Chapel of San Marcos
Chapel of San Roque
Church of San Miguel
Parochial church of San Miguel
Remains of the fortifications

Villafeliche has the same way tradition as center of pottery popularly, still current craft at present. There existed numerous mills of gunpowder of those that one of them one has managed to restore showing the whole process of production of the gunpowder.

The holidays are in honor of San Marcos, San Juan and San Ignacio Thin, and they are celebrated from the first Sunday of August until Tuesday following.

Museums
Real Factories of Gunpowder of Villafeliche
To 2km. Of the city center. Place of the Mills of the Jiloca. Tfno: 976-891201

DECREE 35/2007, of March 13, of Government of Aragon, for which they declare themselves Well of Cultural Interest, in the category of Set of Cultural Interest, Sight Ethnographic, the mills of gunpowder of Villafeliche (Saragossa). (fte and texts to see links)


I ANNEX I DESCRIPTION OF THE MILLS OF GUNPOWDER OF VILLAFELICHE (SARAGOSSA)

The mills of gunpowder and the Real Factory of Gunpowder of Villafeliche (Saragossa), there constituted, in his more than four hundred years of existence, one of the principal economic activities of a province of Saragossa and of Aragon. His origin seems to go back to Mudejar epoch, being in functioning up to his closing for Order of Fernando VII in 1830, order that was implying the dismantling of the machinery to prevent any later production.

The gunpowder mills shape at present a scenery preindustrially of supreme hereditary importance that, for his extension geographical and the complexity of the productive process, still trasluce his past economic, social and strategic transcendency. The gunpowder black supposed a big innovation consisted of a miscellany of saltpeter, sulfur and coal, it was already known from the Middle Age, but his manufacture developed from the XVth century, supplying between others the War of the Independence and Places of Saragossa, the gunpowder was essential for the defense and the warlike conflicts of Modern and contemporary Spain.

The Real Factory of Gunpowder of Villafeliche shared supplying of the gunpowder in Spain with the Real Factories of Granada, Murcia, Manresa and later Pamplona and Ruidera. Her Real Factory of Gunpowder of Villafeliche was a management model of mixed entitlement, different from the others Real Factories of Spain: the mills were a particular property, the ditch that them was feeding communal property and on the Crown the management was relapsing of production, the supplying of prime matters and authorization of you license in hands of the real Manager.

This model of mixed development of Villafeliche was exported and implanted in America and the Philippines for the creation of the factories colonial for his high profitability and under cost for the arks real. To facilitate the implantation of this system the crown factory entrusted a Report to Joseph Campillo, real manager of in the second half of the XVIIIth century. For which the process of manufacture of the mills of gunpowder of Villafeliche is much well documented on having had this manuscript of 1764, kept in the Library of the Real Palace of Madrid.

Concerning the manufacture of the gunpowder several offices arose and several prime matters were necessary that localities were coming from others : the sulfur of the mines of Villel in Teruel, was purified by merger, cooled and ground in tahonas; the wood was obtaining in Towns of Teruel, the sacks of tow of Calatayud and Daroca and the charcoal was made by willow branches. saltpeter was obtained by a handmade chemical process, since natural saltpeter obtained by biological decomposition was scarce. The whole complexity of the production of the gunpowder determined that he was submitting to the real protectionism.

There became almost 200 gunpowder mills, located in outskirts of the built-up area of Villafeliche, in the vale protected in the winds, which one extends between the river Jiloca and Way of the Mills, aligned with the axis of the «Ditch of Mills» along 872 meters in tier, of which they take motive water. They were independent between themselves in order to whom not they were spreading explosions in chain.

Every mill was a construction of rectangular plant of up to some 6 vain square, scarce or void meters, only the one that was fitting the axis that was moving the water, walls of masonry and covering to a water. The set of the mills was completed by other dependencies as stores, offices, position of guard and buildings of preparation of the gunpowder and the flour mill.

There were buildings simple, they were arranging of a small channel in that was turning a wheel vitruviana and the miscellany was kneaded in a mortar of stone with the help of wooden maces which proportions were: 1 Castilian 25 pound of saltpeter, 4 pounds of sulfur and 4 of coal. Her gunpowder pasta was passing for one «arnero of clean skin» and in occasions he was surrendering to the "swaggering", what was carrying out in wooden barrels driven by means of a hydraulic wheel.

In the XIXth century the gunpowder manufacture enters directly in the age industrial, departing from the invention of the dynamite for A. Nobel Prize. king Amadeo I in 1872 grants a privilege for the manufacture of gunpowder to the Spanish Society of the Dynamite, bringing in directly in the industrial age and happening to be Villafeliche a testimony after his closing in 1830, although gunpowder kept on taking place irregularly until the beginning of the XXth century.

I ANNEX II to continue in official Bulletin of Aragon