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Alberto Mena Caamaño Museum

Ecuadorian building and structure stubsMuseums established in 1957Museums in QuitoSouth American museum stubs
Museo Alberto Mena Caamaño (Quito)
Museo Alberto Mena Caamaño (Quito)

Alberto Mena Caamaño Museum (Spanish: Museo Alberto Mena Caamaño) is a museum in Quito, Ecuador. A cultural institution of Quito, the capital of Ecuador, it is located in the historic center of the city, next to the Palacio de Carondelet. The Rough Guide to Ecuador considers it to be the "old town's most rewarding museum".It was created by ordinance on May 28, 1957, following a donation from the aristocratic philanthropist Alberto Mena Caamaño. The donation included more than 600 objects including paintings, sculptures, archaeological pieces, weapons and miscellaneous items. After a restoration of the former Royal Barracks building, the museum opened to the public on November 3, 1959. In 1970 a permanent exhibition hall was added on a theme of the slaughter which occurred on August 2, 1810, when 200 citizens were killed in the barracks and the surrounding streets of Quito by royalist troops. It is depicted by wax figures of the artist Francisco Barbieri. In 1987 the museum had to close its doors due to minor damage to the building structure, as a result of the earthquakes that rocked Quito that year. Finally, on November 27, 2002, it reopened following extensive restoration.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Alberto Mena Caamaño Museum (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Alberto Mena Caamaño Museum
Morales, Quito

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N -0.22111111111111 ° E -78.513888888889 °
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Ciudad de Quito

Morales
170405 Quito (Centro Histórico)
Pichincha, Ecuador
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Museo Alberto Mena Caamaño (Quito)
Museo Alberto Mena Caamaño (Quito)
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Quito
Quito

Quito (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈkito] ; Quechua: Kitu), officially San Francisco de Quito, is the capital and second-largest city of Ecuador, with an estimated population of 2.8 million in its metropolitan area. It is also the capital of the province of Pichincha. Quito is located in a valley on the eastern slopes of Pichincha, an active stratovolcano in the Andes. Quito's elevation of 2,850 m (9,350 ft) makes it either the highest or the second highest capital city in the world. This varied standing is because Bolivia is a country with multiple capitals; if La Paz is considered the Bolivian national capital, it tops the list of highest capitals, but if Sucre is specified as the capital, then it is the second highest, behind Quito. Quito is the political and cultural center of Ecuador as the country's major governmental, administrative, and cultural institutions are located within the city. The majority of transnational companies with a presence in Ecuador are headquartered there. It is also one of the country's two major industrial centers—the port city of Guayaquil being the other one. The date of its first habitation is unknown, but archaeological evidence suggests that it was first settled by sedentary populations between 4400 and 1600 BC. In the late fifteenth century, the Inca Emperor Huayna Capac defeated the Quitu, the region's original inhabitants, and incorporated Quito into the Inca Empire, designating it into the capital of the Inca Empire's northern region. The Spanish conquest of the city in 1534 is the date most frequently cited as the city's official founding, making Quito the oldest capital in South America. Quito's historic center is among the largest and best-preserved in the Americas. In 1978, Quito and Kraków were the first World Cultural Heritage Sites declared by UNESCO. Quito is the capital city closest to the Equator, which runs through the northern part of the metropolitan area in the parish of San Antonio.

Basilica and Convent of San Francisco, Quito
Basilica and Convent of San Francisco, Quito

The Basilica and Convent of San Francisco (Spanish: Iglesia y Convento de San Francisco), commonly known as el San Francisco, is a Catholic basilica that stands in the middle of the historic center of Quito, in front of the square of the same name. It is the oldest and most significant religious site in Ecuador. The structure is the largest architectural complex within the historic centers of all of South America, and for this reason it was known as "El Escorial of the New World". San Francisco is considered a jewel of continental architecture for its mixture of different styles combined throughout more than 150 years of construction. San Francisco is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site "City of Quito". On its three and a half hectares of surface, thirteen cloisters have been built (six of them of great magnitude), three temples, a large Atrium, adding approximately 40,000 square meters of construction. Multiple activities are currently carried out there: conventual and religious, public care in the areas of health, communication, education and others of a popular nature that keep the building active. Inside the church there are more than 3,500 works of colonial art, of multiple artistic manifestations and varied techniques, especially those corresponding to the Colonial Quito School of Art, which was born precisely in this place. It also has a Franciscan library, described in the 17th century as the best in the Viceroyalty of Peru. The complex is preceded by the Plaza de San Francisco that for years supplied the city with water from its central fountain, and which has functioned as a popular market, as a space for military and political concentrations, and as a meeting place and social recreation. The concave-convex staircase that connects the square with the Atrium, which highlights the Mannerist-Baroque facade of the main building, is considered of great architectural importance in the Colonial Americas.