Word: ciutadella
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Minorca was ruled by Arabs from the 8th to the 18th century, then by Spaniards from the ancient city of Ciudadela (Ciutadella, in the Minorcan language), at the western end of the island. In 1713 the British moved their administrative capital to the town of Mahon (Mao) in the southeast, where it remains to this day. While Ciudadela boasts a Catholic cathedral and the imposing town houses of ancient nobility, Mahon is Georgian in flavor, with a commercial, matter-of-fact bustle. "Minorca is different in so many ways," observes a longtime resident, British-born historian Bruce Laurie...
...acting as a symbol, a building can resonate with much greater force in the cultural consciousness; it is like an empty vessel that has been filled with a culturally-endowed meaning. During the occupation of Barcelona by the Bourbons in the eighteenth century, for example, the construction of the Ciutadella (the Citadel of Barcelona) became a hated symbol of Bourbon tyranny...
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