The Museum of Cadiz was founded in 1970 after the merger of the Provincial Museum of Fine Arts with the Provincial Museum of Archaeology. It is on three floors, archaeology on the ground floor, art on the first, and puppets on the second floor. Entry is free for citizens of the European Union.
The origin of the museum came in 1835, when art was confiscated from a monastery, including paintings by Zurbarán taken from the Charterhouse of Jerez de la Frontera. Other paintings included the works of Murillo and Rubens. The collection grew during the century, due to the city's Academy of Fine Arts which practised romanticism and neoclassicism. In 1877, after a Phoenician sarcophagus was found in the city's shipyard, the Archaeological Museum was founded. However, it was not until 1970 that the two institutes, despite sharing the same building, were merged. From 1980, the architect Javier Feduchi planned a reform of the building in three phases, of which two have been completed.
In addition to the 19th-century pieces, the art museum has received contemporary art from the Junta de Andalucía. Its archaeological section has also received donations, particularly of coins. Despite a range of prehistoric findings from Southern Andalusia, due to local history, it has a lack of artefacts from the Middle Ages. The 'Tía Norica' set of puppets, used at the Carnival of Cádiz, was acquired by the State.
References:The Church of St Donatus name refers to Donatus of Zadar, who began construction on this church in the 9th century and ended it on the northeastern part of the Roman forum. It is the largest Pre-Romanesque building in Croatia.
The beginning of the building of the church was placed to the second half of the 8th century, and it is supposed to have been completed in the 9th century. The Zadar bishop and diplomat Donat (8th and 9th centuries) is credited with the building of the church. He led the representations of the Dalmatian cities to Constantinople and Charles the Great, which is why this church bears slight resemblance to Charlemagne's court chapels, especially the one in Aachen, and also to the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna. It belongs to the Pre-Romanesque architectural period.
The circular church, formerly domed, is 27 m high and is characterised by simplicity and technical primitivism.