The Museo de Málaga, which was actually constituted in 1973, opened in 2016 in the impressive Palacio de la Aduana. It has brought together the former Museo Provincial de Bellas Artes (Provincial Museum of Fine Arts) and Museo Arqueológico Provincial.Málaga now joins Almería, Cádiz, Huelva and Jaén in having a 'provincial museum' in their respective capital cities; while Seville, Córdoba and Granada have separate fine arts and archaeological museums.
The 18,000 square metre museum has eight rooms, the first five dedicated to archaeology and the other three to fine arts. There are just over 2,000 pieces in the fine arts collection and more than 15,000 in the archaeology collection.
The Fine Arts section includes works by Luis de Morales, Luca Giordano, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Antonio del Castillo, Alonso Cano, Pedro de Mena, Jusepe de Ribera, Francisco Zurbarán, Diego Velázquez, Francisco de Goya, Federico de Madrazo, Ramón Casas, José Moreno Carbonero, Enrique Simonet, Joaquín Sorolla, Léon Bonnat, Franz Marc and Pablo Picasso.
References:The Château de Foix dominates the town of Foix. An important tourist site, it is known as a centre of the Cathars. Built on an older 7th-century fortification, the castle is known from 987. In 1002, it was mentioned in the will of Roger I, Count of Carcassonne, who bequeathed the fortress to his youngest child, Bernard. In effect, the family ruling over the region were installed here which allowed them to control access to the upper Ariège valley and to keep surveillance from this strategic point over the lower land, protected behind impregnable walls.
In 1034, the castle became capital of the County of Foix and played a decisive role in medieval military history. During the two following centuries, the castle was home to Counts with shining personalities who became the soul of the Occitan resistance during the crusade against the Albigensians.