The coat of arms of Tortosa

A few weeks ago, Tim, an Australian friend who I met in El Forn de la Canonja doing language exchange, asked me for the meaning of Tortosa coat of arms. And that was a really good question because I have never raised that issue, and actually I didn’t have a good answer to give him.

I knew that Tortosa had been an important city in the medieval age, and then were the origins of the coat of arms, but I didn’t know more details about it. So I decided to look for some information and a former teacher recommended me an old book called Armas y blasones de la fidelisima y ejemplar ciudad de Tortosa. That book, which was written in the 19^th century, explained briefly this question.

In the old times, the first coat of arms was a ship with its sail in the wind. Nowadays, you can still see this symbol in some places like Chamber of Commerce or as a decoration seal in the city festivals.

The current coat of arms is a tower and is dated from 12^th century, when Muslims where defeated and the count Ramon Berenguer IV gave the city its traditions and customs, as a way to rule by itself again. It’s a silver tower, with a door, two windows and four battlements. The tower doesn’t correspond to any exact localization in the city. Therefore, it’s a generic symbol very often used in heraldry with medieval foundations.

The background is a red field (‘field gules’ in heraldic terminology) in a diamond-shaped box. The rhombus is a quite extended shape in the cities and villages because of their female condition, and the diamond shape has this connotation too. You can check most of the cities coats of arms and they have this shape.

In relation to the crown and palms, they were given by King Philip IV during the 17^th century, much more lately. So in a strict sense, neither crown nor palms belong to the original coat of arms. Both symbols have a monarchic meaning.

Thanks to an Australian guy we know more details about our city symbol, because if he hadn't ask me I wouldn't have done this tiny research ;)