Señorío de Villena, who would soon become Marquess. In 1476 it was definitively joined to the Spanish crown. On Easter Sunday 1766, Tobarra became the second place in Spain, after Madrid, to rise up against food shortages, in the Esquilache Riots. (Indeed, the Marquis of Esquilache had slept in Tobarra the night before his exile). In 1812 the French troops under General Soult burned the town in their retreat from Murcia. Tobarra had to begin again from zero. In the 20th century, the destruction that occurred in Spanish Civil War did away with much of the local cultural inheritance, with the exception of the head of the "Ecce Homo" image and the "Virgen de los Dolores" sculpture by Francisco Salzillo. Around 1950, Tobarra reached its peak population of nearly 14,000. Since then, the desarrollista (development) policy of the Franco government turned growth toward the east, to the provincial capitals, leaving Tobarra to create its own economic growth. Main sights Among its places of interest, the area includes: the museum of the Drum and Holy Week (Museo del Tambor y Semana Santa), located at the 17th-century Hermitage of the Virgin (Ermita de la Purísima) the Monument to the Drum: "La Evolución" by local sculptor Jesús D. Jiménez Ramírez (pictured right) the church of Our Lady of the Ascension Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción, built between 1546 and 1616 the sanctuary of Christ of Antiquity and the Virgin of the Incarnation, Santuario del Cristo de la Antigua y Virgen de la Encarnación, recognised as a historical and artistic national monument since 1981, with a caissoned ceiling, a dressing room with 18th-century painted murals dedicated to the Virgin, and other rococo decorations under the cupola where the Christ of Antiquity is located. Next to the Sanctuary are the ruins of a Muslim fortress, from which one can see the tower known as Ojos del Diablo (the Devil's Eyes). Other sights include the Town Clock, the Convent of the Franciscan Order of Saint Joseph (currently being restored), the Hispano-Visigoth stone hermitage of Alborajico, the lagoon of Alboraj, the saladares of Cordovilla and the tower of El Castellar in Sierra. References Municipalities of the Province of Albacete