Old documents describe Toletum in the fourth century BC as the capital of Roman Carpetania. The Alans and the Visigoths, of Iranian and Germanic descent, respectively, settled in the region after the Romans left. There began a period of political and religious splendour, followed by three centuries of decline during Muslim occupation. In 1085, King Alfonso VI ordered that this area, bathed by the river Tagus, be repopulated.   In the second half of the thirteenth century, Alfonso X the Wise turned the city into one of Europe’s major cultural hubs. During his reign, great books on philosophy and theology that had been stored in Islamic and Jewish libraries were recovered and translated at the renowned Toledo School of Translators. Around 12,000 Jews lived in Toledo in those years, where they built a considerable number of synagogues.   The Catholic Monarchs always showed a penchant for Toledo. In 1561, as the city could no longer accommodate so many official bodies, King Philip II moved the Royal Court to Madrid. Following the King’s decision, the city fell into oblivion. With the passing of time, however, the Catholic Church brought it back to life with the foundation of convents and other religious institutions.   The nineteenth century brought to Toledo Romantic artists and writers, considerable population growth, and the railway (1858). Over the second half of the twentieth century, there was another industrial boost and, in the 1980s, Toledo became the capital of the Region of Castile-La Mancha.