Comillas is a small town nestled between four hills, a few meters from the coast along the Bay of Biscay. It is also called "the town of the archbishops" as it is the birthplace of five prelates who occupied the diocese between the 17th and 18th centuries. It was declared of Cultural Interest in 1985.

The town is important thanks to the quality and number of works of art and monuments, which are a well defined testimony of the arts of the late 19th century in Spain.

The construction of the most representative buildings of the town goes hand in hand with the life of the first Marquis of Comillas, Antonio López y López and subsequently his son Claudio López Bru.

The first Marquis of Comillas, Antonio López López, was a Spanish Colonial whose economic and social advancement was unstoppable since his return from Cuba and his establishment of businesses in Barcelona, culminating with the connection in 1878 of the title of Marquis of his home town of Comillas. This title was bestowed by Alfonso XIII in recognition of the financial and material support in the fight against the Cuban insurrection. From that time the town was personalized in the figure of the Marquis and a monument was built in his memory.

Modernism in Comillas

This period rendered works of great importance for the history of Spanish art such as The Sobrellano Palace (1881-1890), by Joan Martorell i Montells, the Chapel cemetery (1881), also by Joan Martorell i Montells, el Capricho (1883), by Antoni Gaudí, the Santo Hospital (1888), by Cristóbal Cascante y Colom, the Fountain of the Three Pipes (1899) by Lluís Domènech i Montaner, the Monument to the Marquis (1890), by Cristóbal Cascante y Colom and Lluís Domènech i Montaner, and the Pontifical University (1892), by Joan Martorell i Montells, Cascante and Domènech.