Around the city are remains of prehistoric settlements dating to the
Neolithic, including the
rock art of
Cueva de la Pileta. The places of Arunda and Acinipo mentioned by
Pliny have been traditionally identified with current Ronda. In the fifth century AD, Ronda was conquered by the
Suebi, led by
Rechila, being reconquered in the following century by the
Eastern Roman Empire, under whose rule Acinipo was abandoned. Later, the
Visigothic king Liuvigild captured the city. Ronda was part of the Visigoth realm until 713, when it fell to the
Umayyad troops, who named it Hisn al-Rundah ("Castle of Rundah") and made it the capital of the
Takurunna province. It was the hometown of the
polymath Abbas ibn Firnas (810–887), an
inventor,
engineer,
alleged aviator,
chemist,
physician, Muslim poet, and
Andalusian musician. After the disintegration of the
caliphate of Córdoba, Ronda became the capital of a small kingdom ruled by the
Berber Banu Ifran, the
taifa of Ronda. During this period, Ronda gained most of its Islamic architectural heritage. In 1065, Ronda was conquered by the
taifa of Seville led by
Abbad II al-Mu'tadid. Both the poet
Abu al-Baqa ar-Rundi (1204–1285) and the
Sufi scholar
Ibn Abbad al-Rundi (1333–1390) were born in Ronda. Hitherto part of the
Nasrid Kingdom of Granada, Ronda was seized by the
Crown of Castile in 1485. The city was granted a
fuero copying Seville's. Upon the Christian conquest, a policy favouring the settlement of Christians in the cities while leaving Muslim majorities in the rural communities was pursued, configurating a 70%–30% balance between
mudéjares and Christians settlers in the
Serranía de Ronda. In the early 16th century,
a series of edicts enacted that
mudéjares from the
Crown of Castile must either leave or convert. The practice of
Taqiyya was nonetheless common among converts from Islam (
Moriscos) and cultural and religious continuity was prevalent in the area until the
Alpujarras revolt. Upon the 1570 decision to resettle the so-called
moriscos de paces (
Moriscos uninvolved in the uprising) away from the
Kingdom of Granada and the fateful actions of municipal Christian militias helmed by involving theft and enslaving, the hitherto largely peaceful
morisco community in the Serranía de Ronda radicalised.
Moriscos engaged in
guerrilla warfare and
banditry, taking advantage of their superior knowledge of the area. In the early 19th century, the
Napoleonic invasion and the subsequent
Peninsular War caused much suffering in Ronda, whose inhabitants were reduced from 15,600 to 5,000 in three years. Ronda's area became the base first of
guerrilla warriors, then of numerous bandits, whose deeds inspired artists such as
Washington Irving,
Prosper Mérimée, and
Gustave Doré. In the 19th century, the economy of Ronda was mainly based on agricultural activities. In 1918, the city was the seat of the
Assembly of Ronda, in which the
Andalusian flag, coat of arms, and anthem were designed. Ronda's Romero family—from
Francisco, born in 1698, to his son Juan, to his famous grandson
Pedro, who died in 1839—played a principal role in the development of modern
Spanish bullfighting. In a family responsible for such innovations as the use of the cape, or
muleta, and a sword especially designed for the kill, Pedro in particular transformed bullfighting into its modern form. Ronda was heavily affected by the
Spanish Civil War, which led to emigration and depopulation. The scene in chapter 10 of
Hemingway's
For Whom the Bell Tolls, describing the 1936 execution of Fascist sympathisers in a (fictional) village who are thrown off a cliff, is considered to be modeled on actual events of the time in Ronda. ==Geography==