Castle of Púbol

Púbol first enters the record in 1020, when Countess Ermessenda of Carcassonne restored the tower of Púbol, with its church and all its appurtenances, to the See of Girona — whose bishop, Pere, was her own brother. The tower seems then to have been enfeoffed to the Bastons family, and in 1065 Gaufred Bastons swore fidelity to Count Ramon Berenguer I and Countess Almodis, binding himself to serve them with twenty knights and to hand over the castles of Púbol and Cervià whenever they demanded it.

His son Berenguer Gaufred succeeded in 1101, followed by a second son, Guillem Gaufred, who held the castle by 1117; both took the surname Cervià. In 1139 Guillem asked Count Ramon Berenguer IV to confirm a donation of the castle, made in his lifetime, to Arnau de Llers, his wife Flandina and their sons. For three generations the lords of Púbol carried the name Llers, until the line's heir came to be known once more as Guillem de Cervià.

By 1368 the castle and barony belonged to Jaspert de Campllong, chief notary of Girona and treasurer to the king, to whom Pere the Ceremonious sold jurisdiction over the territory — a sale confirmed the following year by the infant Joan. Death sentences, it seems, were carried out under his mandate, and in 1399 the villagers of la Pera, Pedrinyà and Caçà de Pelràs petitioned King Martí the Humane to buy their communities out of it. The villages were separated from the barony and the castle of la Pera was built, though the separation was revoked in 1431.

Jaspert's granddaughter Margarida married Bernat de Corbera before 1422, and it was under the Corbera lords, around 1420, that the standing castle took shape; their shield is still visible in various parts of the building. It rose beside the church of Sant Pere de Púbol, built 1327–1341, which until 1936 housed the altarpiece of Sant Pere painted by Bernat Martorell — now in the Girona Art Museum — on which the Corberas' son Francesc appears portrayed beside his mother.

From the Corbera-Campllong heiresses the barony passed by marriage and inheritance through the Montanyans-Horta, Requesens, Oms, Tormo and Balle families to the Miquels. In 1790 the title of Marquess of Blondel de l'Estany entered the family, and the Miquel line held Púbol into the twentieth century.

Salvador Dalí had promised Gala a castle. After negotiations failed for the castles of Empordà, Foixà and Requesens, he settled on Púbol, then in a very poor state, and on 10 November 1969 the last Miquel heirs sold it to Gala. Dalí directed the restoration and created the new decoration entirely himself — then agreed never to visit without her advance permission in writing. Gala spent her summers there through the 1970s.

When she died in 1982 she was buried in the crypt Dalí had prepared as her resting place, and he moved into the castle for the first time that same year. He worked there, finishing his last painting in 1983, until 1984, when a fire broke out in his bedroom under circumstances that remain unclear — possibly a suicide attempt, possibly negligence by his staff. Badly burned, he was rescued by his friend and collaborator Robert Descharnes and withdrew to the Galatea Tower of his Theatre-Museum in Figueres for his final years. He had planned to be buried in the Púbol crypt near Gala; instead he was entombed at that final home.

The castle opened to the public in 1996 as the Gala Dalí Castle House-Museum, property of the Spanish State and managed by the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation. It holds the paintings and drawings Dalí gave Gala to exhibit there, her haute couture dresses and her mausoleum, and with the Portlligat house and the Dalí Theatre-Museum in Figueres it forms the Empordà Dalinian triangle.