Pla de Palau – The Sea Gate

Barcelona · Spain · Execution site

For twelve years General Moragues' severed head hung in an iron cage above the city's sea gate – and sailors learned never to look up as they passed beneath.

At Pla de Palau stood the Portal de Mar, the city gate facing the harbour, and here one of Barcelona's cruellest reprisals played out. On 27 March 1715 General Josep Moragues, hero of the War of the Spanish Succession, was executed: dragged barefoot through the streets behind a horse, hanged, beheaded and quartered. His head was placed in an iron cage and hung above the gate – where it remained for twelve years, while his widow pleaded in vain to take it down. Legend says her weeping was heard at the gate by night and that the general's empty gaze followed all who passed; the harbour's sailors learned to walk beneath the arch with their heads bowed. Guimerà's poem later made the cage one of the darkest images in Catalan memory.

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Where is Pla de Palau – The Sea Gate located?

Pla de Palau – The Sea Gate is in Barcelona, Spain.

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