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 Beckov castle stands on a steep 50 m tall rock in the village Beckov. The dominance of the rock and impression of invincibility it gaves, challenged our ancestors to make use of these assets. The result is a remarkable harmony between the natural setting and architecture.
The castle first mentioned in 1200 was originally owned by the King and later, at the end of the 13th century it fell in hands of Matúš Èák. Its owners alternated - at the end of the 14th century the family of Stibor of Stiborice bought it.
The next owners, the Bánffys who adapted the Gothic castle to the Renaissance residence, improved its fortifications preventing the Turks from conquering it at the end of the 16th century. When Bánffys died out, the castle was owned by several noble families. It fell in decay after fire in 1729.
The history of the castle is the subject of different legends. One of them narrates the origin of the name of castle derived from that of jester Becko for whom the Duke Stibor had the castle built.
Another legend has it that the lord of the castle had his servant thrown down from the rock because he protected his child from the lords favourite dog. Before his death, the servant pronounced a curse saying that they would meet in a year and days time, and indeed precisely after that time the lord was bitten by a snake and fell down to the same abyss.
The well-conserved ruins of the castle, now the National Cultural Monument, are frequently visited by tourists, above all in July when the castle festival takes place. The former Ambro curia situated below the castle now shelters the exhibition of the local history.