Located in the emblematic building of the Captaincy General and renovated to house its important historic collection according to museum criteria in an orderly and didactic manner. It is an exhibition with two discourses organised on two floors. The first floor, chronological, tells the history of the Cádiz Maritime Department from its origins to the present day. It is a tour from the dawn of the 18th century, from 1717, as a result of a reorganisation of the State with the arrival of Phillip V, the first Bourbon monarch in Spain. It continues with its subsequent transfer to Villa de la Real Isla de León, now San Fernando, in 1768, and the important naval construction work that was carried out in the second half of the century to make up an outstanding navy in accordance with its time, driven by men of the stature of the Marquis of La Ensenada y Antonio Valdés. The 19th century is represented through a series of navy battles framed in the context of the Napoleonic Period, whose maximum exponent was the Site of Cadiz during the Spanish War of Independence, whose consequences were felt throughout the entire century. This first display ends with examples of the 20th century Navy, its technological development and the expression achieved in its last third up to the present day.
The second exhibition discourse follows a monographic scheme in accordance with all the objects that show the everyday nature of work and life in the Spanish Navy throughout its history. They are spaces allocated to exhibiting part of the museum’s most outstanding collections, such as pieces of naval models to learn about the evolution of sailing; most representative Navy uniforms and flags, which are true historic jewels; in addition to objects that serve to understand the importance of the training of Spanish sailors through the 18th Academy of Sea Cadets, now the Military Naval School, in addition to its school vessel, the Juan Sebastián de Elcano. The Navy Infantry, the oldest corps in the world; specialities such as the Naval Artillery or the development of naval health thanks to the Cádiz College of Surgery in the 18th century are just some of these monographic rooms that can be seen. Finally, the exhibition concludes with a tour of the facts and events of the history of Spain driven by the Navy from the area comprised of Cádiz Bay, as in the case of the Route to the Indies once the new continent was discovered with all that that entailed. The important fleet of gallies that were anchored during winter in the Cádiz Port of Santa María, and from where they left for Lepanto. And not forgetting what were the great exploratory expeditions of the 18th century, essential for new cartography and scientific hydrography and which contributed to the knowledge of both the current morphology of the land and to sailing.
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