The Naval Museum in Madrid originates from a proposal my ancestor, Mendoza y Rios, made towards the end of the 18th century. It is only a biscuit’s throw (a favourite expression of my grandfather) from the Prado and is worth visiting for one exhibit alone.
But don’t let’s get ahead of ourselves. I was there this week as a guest of Vilma Oil and Clara Perez. I have known Clara first as a client and then as a friend for about thirty years and she arranged a tour of the museum conducted by the director.
Before we went into the museum proper he took us to a modern office where archive material is stored. I was thrilled when a uniformed naval officer laid out some of the charts and written material that Mendoza had sent back to Spain from Paris and London.
Space does not permit a description of the other exhibits we saw which depict Spanish naval history from the 15th century up to the present but it was all of immense interest.
The director told us many things but one in particular astonished me. I cannot verify it on Wiki but I don’t want to parrot Wiki-facts to you, if I can help it. He said that 3,500 Spanish naval officers were killed by their sailors at the beginning of the civil war. The sailors thought the officers would take the side of the Fascists.
He saved the best exhibit until last. It is a mappa mundi painted in 1500 by Juan de la Cosa on two hides. He is a navigator and cartographer who twice sailed to America with Christopher Colombus and his is the first map of that new continent. The colours are remarkably vivid and the details of great interest. The British Isles are rather small at the top centre, America and the Carribbean on the left and, natch, Spain in the centre.
Afterwards, over drinks, we talked of the transition of power and influence from the US to China. One of Clara’s colleagues pointed out the US, like Spain in the 15th century, likes to place itself at the centre of the world. He made his point by showing me the NATO logo on his telephone.
