The house in which Gregorio Mayans i Síscar and his family lived for 28 years of their time in Oliva (1739-1767) is one of the best-preserved 18th-century stately homes of its type in the town: a three-storey house comprising ground floor, first floor and loft, with a pointed arch doorway bordered with stone slabs with an heraldic coat of arms at the peak. Restored in 1988 to be redeployed as the Casa de Cultura, since 1999 it has been the Oliva headquarters of the Valencian Museum of Illustration and Modern Art (MuVIM).

A visit to the museum starts with a film that introduces visitors to the Mayans’ world and the phenomenon of historical illustration in Valencia and in Spain as a whole. It is on the first floor where the permanent exhibition of ‘daily life in the 18th century’ (La vida cotidiana en el siglo XVIII), organised using original historic artefacts and exact replicas, and in which the conditions of the Mayans family’s life is recreated, is found. It comprises the main alcove, the children’s bedrooms, the kitchen, the dining room and the learned Gregorio’s library. Amongst the wide range of materials on display, the most striking include the portraits of Gregorio and of one of his brothers, Manuel Mayans, both painted at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries.

The exceptional recreation of the domestic environment of the period, in addition to the conservation of the house’s original architecture, help you to understand better the work for the defence of criticism and fight for freedom of thought that Gregorio Mayans accomplished since settling in Oliva.

Gregorio Mayans
Born in 1699, Mayans studied philosophy and law and was the dean of the Justiniano faculty of law. He was a writer at a young age and a great scholar: for many years he was in charge of the Royal Library and lived in the court of King Carlos III. He lived out his last days in the city of Valencia on a life annuity that he received from King Carlos as a reward for his work. It was here that Mayans died in 1781 and his body was laid to rest in the cathedral opposite the San Agustín altar, where it remains today.