TARRASA  , a

town of north-eastern Spain, in the province of Barcelona, 6 m . W.N.W. of Sabadell on the Barcelona-Lerida railway, and in the midst of a narrow plain surrounded by mountains . Pop . (1900) 15,956 . Tarrasa was a Roman municipality, and a bishopric from the 5th century to the Moorish invasion in the 8th . It was razed by the Moors and rebuilt later by the Christians . There are three ancient Romanesque churches, in one of which, San Miguel, some Roman pillars are incorporated . Tarrasa is now mostly a modern industrial town, with fine public buildings, including the royal college, built in 1864 for 450 students besides day scholars, the school of arts and handicrafts, the industrial institute, chamber of commerce, hospitals, town hall, clubs, theatres and many large textile factories . Grain, wine, oil and fruit are produced in the district, and there is a municipal farm, founded in 1885, for experiments in viticulture .