BENIALÍ (also written as Benicalill, Benihalill, Benihalil, Benihalí, Bonielill, Bemelí). From the Arabic /Bàni Jalil/, name of the family or clan that founded the farmhouse. It appears documented for the first time in Llibre de la col·lecta del morabatí de les valls de Gallinera i Ebo (1369).

Benialí is located at an altitude of just over 300 metres above sea level, on the right bank of the Gallinera River. It has 138 inhabitants (according to a 2019 census) and is where the administrative infrastructure of La Vall de Gallinera is located. Historically it was also the geographical centre of the nineteen farmhouses that once existed in La Vall de Gallinera.

Benialí was founded on a small oval plain that is clearly delimited by two steep ravines, which are ancient landmarks on the west and east faces of the ledge. Later on, due to the proximity to the road, part of the village was built on an upper ledge with a 20% gradient.

Benialí has a fountain inside the village, called Font de la Concepción, which is dedicated to the Virgin Mary. The water comes from higher up, within the ravine that crosses the village. The fountain has a washing place next to it and the excess water goes to a drinking trough and from there it is directed to a pond located next to the path called Camí de Les Hortes, which goes all the way to the old mill, popularly known as Molinet. In the municipal charter of 1611, a flour mill is mentioned (run by Salvador Cerdà, a blacksmith who resided in Benitaia), where all the vassals of La Vall de Gallinera had to grind their wheat, which could therefore have been the old estate mill.

The church of Benialí is located in the same square where the settlement charter was signed in 1611. Just to the left of the church there was the old town hall, the manor butcher’s shop and the manor house, called La Casa de la Senyoria (1864).

The manor house of La Vall de Gallinera was located in the square of Benialí, at number 22, within the block of houses to the right, with a surface area of 3,088.33 square metres and a height of 3.66 metres. On the right it bordered with Carrer del Trinquet, in front was the house of Joaquin Moll, and to the back it had Francisco Alemany de Silvestre’s house. The house consisted of two floors. It was sold at a public auction on the 30th of September, 1864. During the Second Republic, this house was the headquarters of the PCE (Spanish Communist Party) and a party radio station operated there.

The church of Benialí, dedicated to Saint Roc, has two naves with chapels between buttresses at the ends of each nave; the central nave has a higher ceiling than the lateral nave, which is located next to the Epistle side of the church. The central nave has five sections with a ribbed vault, and a fourth section with a flat slab and a slanted roof. Access, marked by a pointed arch, is through the main nave. The bell tower is located next to the entrance. It consists of two sections and is topped by a very simple red tile decoration. It has a neo-Gothic style in the ribbed vaults, the pillars of each section, the decoration of the chapels and the use of the pointed arch.

BENISSIVÀ also appears with the variants Beniçiba, Beniciba, Beniciva, Benicida and Beniceba. It is mentioned for the first time in a text written in the year 1310 and is also documented in the 1391 census. From the Arabic /Bani Sabbàh/, a family name.

It is located at an altitude of 320 metres above sea level, on the right bank of the Gallinera River, at the foot of the Penya Foradada. It has 72 inhabitants, according to the 2019 census.

Benissivà sits on a stretch of higher land that advances towards the Gallinera ravine between two smaller ravines, to the west and east, while to the south it ends with a stepped slope of terraces with olive and almond trees. From the current main road that winds through the valley it is perceived as a linear town, with a single perpendicular street which ends at the church, a typical design of the enlightened rationalism of the 18th century. It was planned out according to the wishes of Bernat Josep Puig, a descendant of the former wardens of La Vall de Gallinera and a resident of Benitaia.

Benissivà was the centre of the Gallinera parish, the parish of Moors that included the valleys of Alcalà, Ebo and Gallinera, under the invocation of Saint John the Baptist. After the expulsion of the Moors it remained uninhabited until the end of the 17th century, and only the church and the Casa Abadia were preserved. Shortly after the repopulation which took place at the end of the 17th century, the construction of the new church began.

The church of Benissivà, dedicated to Saint Michael the Archangel, is composed of a nave covered with a barrel vault that rests upon buttresses, from between which the chapels emerge. It has a transept marked high up, with the Gospel side covered by a dome set upon pendentives, while the high altar and the Epistle side of the transept are covered by a barrel vault. It has a communion chapel with an axis parallel to the nave of the church, located on the Epistle side, that is accessed through the high altar or the transept. It has a rectangular ground plan and a small chevette, covered by a dome over an illuminated tholobate and pendentives in the part near the transept and a long barrel vault elongated towards the chevette. We know that the construction of this church was carried out under the guidance of the master builder Nicolás Moragues, and that it was built between 1727 and 1744, while Juan Roque Cortell was the rector.

BENITAIA appears in texts with the variants Benitahar, Benitaher, Benitaer, Benitalla and Benitaya. It appears documented for the first time in Llibre de la col·lecta del morabatí de les valls de Gallinera i Ebo (1369). From the Arabic /Bani Tàhir/, a family name.

It is located at an altitude of 330 metres above sea level, on the right bank of the Gallinera River, and has 42 inhabitants, according to a 2019 census.

It sits on a long but narrow plain or hill in an east-west direction, about 20-25 metres wide. The village has three short streets, parallel to the valley: Carrer de Baix, Carrer de Dalt and Carrer del Mig (the lower street, the upper street and the middle street).

Near Benitaia, next to the mountain road that leads to La Foradada, lay the remains of the Franciscan convent dedicated to Saint Andreu de la Muntanya, founded by Carles de Borja i Centelles and Artemisa Doria, Dukes of Gandia, the day after the repopulation of the valley with families from Mallorca (11th of June, 1611).

The construction of the convent of Saint Andreu de la Muntanya in La Vall de Gallinera began on the 12th of June, 1611, under the patronage of the Dukes of Gandia who granted the Franciscans an initial funding of six hundred lliures, and then one hundred and fifty lliures per year and various properties. It was a small community throughout its history, but it had a major influence upon the area of the inland valleys. We know that in 1616 it had not yet been finished, but we have evidence of the celebration of a marriage in 1620. After that it was the usual place of the confirmation celebrations in La Vall de Gallinera, as it was the typical place to receive episcopal and other distinguished visits (Joan Baptiste Basset visited the convent in 1705, Antoni Cavanilles stayed in it, and also Basilio Sebastián Castellanos, in charge of preparing a descriptive report of the Duchy of Gandia for the Duke of Osuna, who passed through La Vall de Gallinera during the period 1851-1852).

Currently, after a brutal agrarian transformation, there is only a quadrangular enclosure, the old Calvary with cypresses that has been restored, the Frescatti with a fountain from 1742 —where the friars sat to spend the summer afternoons—, a wooden image of Our Lady of the Angels from the old convent and a little song that they sang in the Porrat dels Àngels every 2nd of August (“Oh, Reina dels Àngels! / Oh, Mare de Déu! / Guardeu-nos les terres / i al cel mos vorem!”), rescued by Juanjo Ortolà from the memory of Rosalia Alemany Parets and Angelita Alemany Alemany.

There are no miracles or valuable relics to mention, but the friars settled in a magical place where something marvellous takes place: the solar alignment. Twice a year, around the Feast Days of Saint Francis of Assisi (2nd, 3rd and 4th of October) and Saint Frances of Rome (8th, 9th and 10th of March), the sun’s rays pass through the arch of La Foradada (“Talaia de llum, arc tibant i ben traçat per l’atzar, ull fitant la mar, portal obert als solixents, les llunes i les brises marineres, la penya Foradada, grotesca, bella i gaudiniana”, wrote Joan Pellicer, which could be translated as follows: “Watchtower of light, taut arch well-drawn by chance, eye staring at the sea, portal open to sunrises, moons and sea breezes, the Foradada rock, grotesque, beautiful and Gaudiesque”) and illuminate the centre of what would have been the old cloister of the convent. When the observer looks at the wonder, the biblical passage from Jacob’s dream comes to mind: “dreaming, he saw a ladder that linked heaven to earth […] how venerable this place is! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven” (Genesis, 28, 10-22). And that is when the revelation takes place, this is what they wanted to tell us; during the time that the alignment lasts we become aware of an important thing, and that is that this privileged, remote and authentic corner of the world deserves to be loved as the antechamber of heaven, and therefore as the door to paradise.

In front of the convent, on the other side of the road, we find the Cava area, referring to the Puig ice well (locally known as cava), located along the Benitaia cattle path. The ice well was built thanks to an establishment granted by the Duke of Gandia to Josep Bernat Puig (1635) which allowed him to build a lime kiln in order to be able to construct the ice well on a piece of land granted to him in the Benitaia ravine. This deposit has since disappeared, but the name has been fossilised in the toponymy.

The Puig family were a family of knights originally from Ontinyent, who worked in the snow business and went on to serve the Dukes of Gandia, became the wardens of the Gallinera Castle and got married in Pego. In fact, throughout the 17th century they lived either in Pego or Benitaia. In his will from the year 1674, Bernat Josep Puig left oil for the lamp in the Benissivà sanctuary and promoted the repopulation of Benissivà at the end of the 17th century. The presence of the family line in La Vall de Gallinera survived for a long time through a granddaughter of Bernat Puig i Pasqual, Vicenta Maria Pastor i Puig, married to Vicent Tallada from Valencia.