Discover this site, housed in what was a wonderful rest residence for the Spanish captain, where objects (and fantastic murals by Diego Rivera) transport the curious to the past of Morelos.
The first interest that arouses when arriving in Cuernavaca is to visit the Cuauhnáhuac Museum and recognize its profound historical value, being the oldest civil building preserved in the national territory. In its more than 480 years of existence, the property has undergone several transformations and has functioned for various purposes. In its first stage (viceregal) it was the residence of the conqueror Hernán Cortés and his wife Juana Zúñiga, who gave birth in this place to the son of the Extremadura captain named Martín, a character who years later was accused of conspiring against the king.
Among the uses that have been given to Palace of Cortés We know that from 1747 to 1821, it served as a prison and in it, Don José María Morelos y Pavón was housed as a prisoner. In 1855, it was the seat of the provisional government of the Republic of Don Juan Álvarez against Santa Anna. Between 1864 and 1866 it was conditioned as the official office of Archduke Maximiliano, due to his frequent visits to Cuernavaca. When the Republic was restored in 1872, the Palacio de Cortés housed the government of the newly elected state of Morelos, a function it carried out until it was converted into the current museum.
The Cuauhnáhuac Museum sample is made up of 19 rooms in which an excellent collection of objects and pieces is presented, most of them referring to the general history of the state. You can find spaces as interesting as that of the settlement of America, the room dedicated to Mesoamerica, two more in which chronological aspects of the Preclassic and Postclassic periods are treated; a special in which objects related to Xochicalco are exhibited; pictographic writing rooms and migrations; the Tlahuicas, ancient inhabitants of the region; the Mexican military influence and its conquest over the territory; the arrival of the Spanish and the Conquest, with the contributions that the old world gave to Mexican lands and a space destined to the history of the Marquis. Subsequently, issues related to the trade of New Spain with the East and a brief vision of the nineteenth century are addressed, to conclude with a sketch of the most outstanding events in the state during the Porfiriato and the revolutionary movement.
The Cuauhnáhuac Museum also has a series of murals made on the terrace of the second level by Diego Rivera around 1930. In them the Guanajuato artist captured scenes related to the history of the entity. Eight years later, Salvador Tarajona decorated the Congress Hall.
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Cuauhnáhuac Regional Museum (Palace of Cortés)
Pacheco Garden, Cuernavaca, Morelos.
