Royal Cabinet of Natural History

The Royal Cabinet of Natural History, established in Madrid in 1776, is remarkable not only for its Creole origins but also for its haunting afterlife. The cabinet was based on the collection of the Guayaquil-born Creole polymath, Pedro Franco Dávila. Franco Dávila’s collection was particularly rich in shells, minerals and fossils. The cabinet also held artefacts of human industry, including paintings by Murillo and Bosch, gilded tobacco boxes, microscopes, weapons, ethnographic objects, Egyptian bronzes, chinaware, and Caribbean idols. The gaps in Franco Dávila’s curious collection were soon filled by new items remitted from the Indies. The upstairs apartment of the Goyeneche Palace was no longer enough. Charles III commissioned architect Juan de Villanueva to design a magnificent home for the expanding Royal Cabinet, along with a chemistry laboratory, a cabinet of Instruments and Machines, and a new Academy of Sciences. By a twist of fate, however, Villanueva’s natural history museum became the Prado art museum. Napoleon’s invading army occupied Villanueva’s edifice. Meanwhile, Napoleon’s Corsican born brother Joseph Bonaparte was proclaimed José I of Spain and the Indies. King José I created by decree a new Museum of Painting, in part to house the art removed by French troops from Spain’s royal palaces, churches and monasteries, including El Escorial. With the restoration of Ferdinand VII, the Bonapartist painting museum was renamed Museo Fernandino. In 1819 Ferdinand VII opened the Royal Museum of Painting and Sculpture in Villanueva’s refitted palace, today known as the Prado Museum. Meanwhile, the Royal Cabinet survived in the Goyeneche Palace, where it had its ups and downs. After years in storage, it was installed in what is today the National Museum of Natural Sciences (MNCN). Today, all the major museums of Madrid trace their origins to Franco Dávila’s cabinet.