Zamora is a city in
Castile and León,
Spain, the capital of the
province of Zamora. It lies on a rocky hill in the northwest, near the frontier with
Portugal and crossed by the
Duero river, which is some 50km/30mi downstream as it reaches the Portuguese frontier. With its 24
Romanesque churches of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries it has been called a "museum of Romanesque art". Zamora is the city with more Romanesque churches in all Europe. Zamora has a unique Romanesque monument, with the peculiar characteristics which is very difficult to find in other places.
Zamora was originally a Moorish settlement, and during the fighting between Christians and Moors it was the scene of many fierce engagements, reflected in the Spanish national epic, the "Cantar de mio Cid".
The name Zamora comes from the Gothic "Semura"[citation needed] or from the Arab "Azemur" and "Semurah". However, the city was really founded by the Romans, under the name of Occelum Durii or Ocellodurum (the Duero Eye), in the days when the Lusitanian hero Viriathus fought the Roman invasion. At Roman conquest, it was in the hands of the Vaccaei, and was incorporated into the Roman province of Hispania Tarraconensis. It was on the road from Emerita (modern Mérida) to Asturica Augusta (modern Astorga). (Ant. Itin. pp. 434, 439).
During the Medieval Age, Zamora was taken by the Arabs and by the Christians successively (from the Arab invasions in the early years of the eighth century to the last years of the eleventh), and it was fortified.
