MCM

The Ceramic Museum of Manises is installed in the only civil building of architectural relevance of the 18th century that remains in Manises.

The so called House of Ferraro was built in 1784 by a family of Italian origin (Ferraro-Causa) that had made their fortune in the city of Valencia in the wool and silk trade. In the mid 18th century, when this activity was in decline, they began to diversify their investments by acquiring properties in towns neighbouring the capital city.

The penultimate owner of the property was the doctor Don José Sanchis Pertegás, of good social position and who became the Mayor of the town towards the end of the 19th century. In the wills of his inheritors, the Casanova Dalfó-Sanchis family, the building passed into the property of the Municipal Council in 1976 and soon became a Municipal Museum.

With the mission of presenting its collections from the perspective of a modern museum, an extension to the museums space was made in 1985, adding a new wing to the posterior chamber of the existing building and restoring what was left of the original structure.

Among the successes of the reform and extension of the work to convert it into a monographic ceramic museum, one should highlight the successful linking of the old and new buildings - through stairs and ramps around a hollow central space, and finished with a translucent dome – which allow a sequential viewing of all the rooms in an ascending, spiral direction, and in which the productions of local artisans from the 14th to the 20th century are on display.

The main façade on Sagrario street is of a symmetrical composition, with a central door on the ground floor; three floors and conserves its original structure almost intact. At its highest point it has an exceptional crossed-beam ceiling, the second and first floors - each have three open spaces – are trumpet-shaped with forged iron balconies and are decorated below with polychromatic Valencian tiles dating from the second half of the 18th century; at the height of the first floor, in the wall section between the spaces on the right, there is a panel of Valencian tiles from the end of the 18th century that represents the Holy Trinity.

Once through the doors of the museum, to the right one finds the door to a room with a gothic door frame from the end of the 15th century. It is one of the only remaining architectural vestiges saved from the fire and demolition of the Palace of Mosen Sorell  in Valencia, and which was installed in its present place by José Sanchis Pertegás.

More information in this website.

How to get?

From the Tourist Office it is very easy to get to the MCM, you just have to take Paseo Guillermo de Osma and continue straight across Blasco Ibáñez Avenue and continuing along San Juan Street until the end. Then turn right onto Sagrario Street until number 22.

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