Charles III ordered a natural history cabinet to be built beside the Paseo del Prado, next to a botanical garden and an observatory. The war against Napoleon left it in ruins, and Ferdinand VII turned it into a museum of paintings in 1819. Twelve stops between the academy where Goya was director, Charles III's avenue of fountains, the palace holding an industrial family's collection, the bronze painter facing the Ritz, Villanueva's facade, the picture where the viewer is the king, the triptych that obsessed Philip II, the night of the firing squads, the paintings from the deaf man's house, the cloister rebuilt stone by stone, the ballroom where Guernica was shown and the garden of plants that arrived from the Americas. Approximate audio duration: 24 minutes.
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El Prado: el edificio pensado para la ciencia que terminó guardando a Velázquez y Goya
Carlos III mandó levantar junto al paseo del Prado un gabinete de historia natural, pegado a un jardín botánico y a un observatorio. La guerra contra Napoleón lo dejó en ruinas y Fernando VII lo convirtió en museo de pinturas en 1819. Doce paradas entre la academia donde Goya fue director, el salón de las fuentes de Carlos III, el palacio que guarda la colección de una familia de industriales, el pintor de bronce que mira al Ritz, la fachada de Villanueva, el cuadro donde el espectador es el rey, el tríptico que obsesionó a Felipe II, la noche de los fusilamientos, las pinturas de la casa del sordo, el claustro reconstruido piedra por piedra, el salón de baile donde se exhibió el Guernica y el jardín de las plantas que llegaban de América. Duración aproximada de audio: 24 minutos.
Tour stops
12 stops · ~24 min of audio · 2.68 km on foot (~40 min walking) · about 1 h 15 min in total
You are on Calle de Alcalá, in front of a pale stone palace with a restrained doorway. This is the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, founded in 1752 under Ferdinand VI. The Prado's story begins here, even though the museum is almost a kilometre away.
Look up at the Latin inscription above the door. It says, roughly, that King Charles III brought nature and art together here under one roof for public benefit. It is dated 1774.
That was meant literally. For years this building housed two institutions: the academy of painters, sculptors and architects, and the Royal Cabinet of Natural…
2
Charles III's Grand Salon
You are at the northern end of the Paseo del Prado, with the goddess Cybele in her chariot behind you. Look south: a broad avenue with trees and fountains, sloping gently down towards Atocha.
The name comes from a real meadow. There were pastures and orchards here beside the Jerónimos monastery, on the edge of town. Madrid's residents came to stroll and, while they were at it, to do things best not done inside the walls.
Charles III arrived from Naples in 1759 and found a dirty, disorderly capital. He wanted a promenade worthy of a European court. The architect José de Hermosilla's plan turn…
3
The Palace That Completed the Triangle
In front of you stands the Palacio de Villahermosa, a neoclassical building of brick and stone facing the Neptune fountain. It was built in the early nineteenth century for the Dukes of Villahermosa.
Today it is the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum. It houses the collection assembled over the twentieth century by two generations of a family of German and Hungarian industrialists, the Thyssen-Bornemisza barons.
The collection lived in a villa on Lake Lugano, in Switzerland, and had outgrown it. Several countries wanted it. Spain won: the museum opened in 1992 and the following year the stat…
4
Goya Facing the Ritz
You are at the northern end of the Prado building. Before you, seated on a pedestal, is Francisco de Goya in bronze, the work of the sculptor Mariano Benlliure, unveiled in 1902. Across the street stands the Ritz Hotel.
Behind the statue, a flight of steps rises to a columned doorway: the Goya Entrance. It leads to the museum's upper floor and is the highest point of the building, because the ground slopes from north to south.
Goya was court painter to Charles IV and portrayed the whole royal family. But he also painted private commissions for the most powerful man in the kingdom, the minist…
5
A Science Museum That Never Opened
You are facing the centre of the Prado's main facade, before a great columned portico: the Velázquez Entrance. The statue of the painter, by Aniceto Marinas, was unveiled in 1899, three hundred years after his birth.
Juan de Villanueva designed this building for Charles III in 1785. It was meant for the Royal Cabinet of Natural History, the one that no longer fitted on Calle de Alcalá. Notice how long it is: it was planned to be walked through like an encyclopedia of nature.
Work went slowly. Charles III died in 1788 without seeing it finished. Then in 1808 came the French invasion: Napoleon…
6
The Painting That Looks Back
You are standing before Las Meninas. It is over three metres tall, and Velázquez painted it in 1656 in a room of Madrid's old Alcázar, where he had his studio. Stay still for a moment before reading anything.
In the centre is the Infanta Margarita, about five years old, surrounded by her ladies-in-waiting, the meninas, who offer her water and tend to her. On the right are two members of the court with dwarfism, Mari Bárbola and Nicolasito Pertusato, who rests his foot on a drowsy dog.
On the left, brush in hand and facing a huge canvas of which we see only the back, is Velázquez himself. And…
7
Philip II's Triptych
You are in front of The Garden of Earthly Delights, by the Flemish painter Jheronimus Bosch, known in Spain as El Bosco. He painted it around 1500. Open, the triptych is almost four metres wide.
Read it from left to right. On the left panel, God presents Eve to Adam in paradise. In the centre, hundreds of naked men and women play with giant fruit, birds and bubbles. On the right is hell: musical instruments turned into torture machines and a tree-man with a hollow body.
Step closer to the central panel and look for the details: a couple inside a glass bubble, people riding deer and unicorns …
8
The Night of the Firing Squads
You are in front of The Third of May 1808 in Madrid, known to everyone as The Executions. Look at the light first: it comes from a square lantern on the ground and falls on a man in a white shirt with his arms flung wide.
On 2 May 1808 the people of Madrid rose up against the French troops occupying the city. That night and into the next morning, the French shot dozens of prisoners. One of the sites was the Príncipe Pío hill, near where the Temple of Debod stands today.
Notice the contrast. The soldiers are a row of backs, faceless, all in the same pose, like a machine. The victims, by contr…
9
The Paintings from the Deaf Man's House
You are in the room of the Black Paintings. The walls are dim and the pictures seem made of mud and ash: ochres, blacks, dirty whites. Look for Saturn, a wild-eyed giant devouring one of his sons.
These paintings were made for no king and no museum. In 1819 Goya, over seventy and completely deaf for decades, bought a country house beside the Manzanares river. It was known as the Quinta del Sordo, the Deaf Man's House, although the name came from an earlier owner.
Between 1819 and 1823 he painted fourteen scenes straight onto the plaster walls of two rooms in the house. He never gave them tit…
10
The Cloister Rebuilt Stone by Stone
You are behind the Villanueva building, facing the Prado's extension: a red-brick volume topped by a cube, beside a Gothic church with two towers. The church is San Jerónimo el Real, and the cube holds what remains of its cloister.
The Jerónimos monastery settled on this slope in the early sixteenth century, with the support of the Catholic Monarchs. For centuries its church was the setting for royal ceremonies, such as the swearing-in of heirs to the throne. In 1906 King Alfonso XIII was married here.
The monastery was badly damaged in the war against Napoleon and later by the confiscation …
11
The Ballroom Where Guernica Hung
You are in front of the Casón del Buen Retiro, a building with a classical facade a step away from the park. It looks like a Greek temple, but inside it holds one of the few remains of the great palace the Habsburgs had on this hill.
The Buen Retiro palace was built in the 1630s for Philip IV, driven by his chief minister, the Count-Duke of Olivares. This building was its ballroom, completed around 1637.
At the end of the seventeenth century Charles II commissioned the Neapolitan painter Luca Giordano to decorate the ceiling. The fresco celebrates the Spanish monarchy and the Order of the Go…
12
The Garden of Plants from the Americas
You are at the Murillo Gate of the Royal Botanical Garden, a few steps from the Prado's southern facade. Beyond the railings lie terraced flowerbeds, century-old trees and a columned pavilion at the far end.
This garden is the other piece of Charles III's plan. Ferdinand VI had founded it in 1755 elsewhere, on the banks of the Manzanares. In 1781 Charles III moved it here, beside the building going up for natural history. It was designed by Francesco Sabatini and Juan de Villanueva, the Prado's own architect.
The idea was a single one: useful science. The garden studied plants for medicine, …
How long does the "The Prado: the Building Meant for Science That Ended Up Housing Velázquez and Goya" audio tour take?
It has about 24 minutes of audio across 12 stops and a 2.68 km walking route (~40 min on foot). Plan roughly 1 h 15 min in total, or split it up: you can pause and resume anytime.
Where does the tour start?
At stop 1, "Art and Nature Under One Roof" (coordinates 40.41785, -3.7006). The app guides you from stop to stop with a map.
Is it free?
Trevurs is a free app for iOS and Android. There is also an optional Premium version, from USD 1.99, with unlimited offline downloads, access to every tour and no ads. It also helps keep an independent app alive.
Why use an audio tour instead of a guided group tour?
No group to keep up with and no guide to wait for. Start at any time of day, on your own schedule. Go at your own pace: pause, rewind or skip any stop. No need to commit 2 or 3 hours to a single tour: do one stop or the whole route. Works offline once downloaded.
What languages is this audio guide available in?
This tour is available in Spanish, English, Portuguese, French, Italian. Switch languages anytime from inside the app.
Do I need wifi to listen to this tour?
No. Download the tour over wifi before you go, then listen without any data connection.
How do I access this tour?
Download Trevurs on iPhone (App Store) or Android (Google Play), then open Madrid and pick "The Prado: the Building Meant for Science That Ended Up Housing Velázquez and Goya". No account required to start.
