This building is the union of two heritage elements of the city that have their origin in the seventeenth century. One is the remains of the old manor house of the Sanabria family and the other is what remains of the old chapel of Santo Domingo Soriano, created as a memorial by Don Diego de Sanabria.
The house has been used for different purposes, especially as an inn, until it was acquired by the city council and converted into a museum. It houses all the archaeological elements of certain interest in the city.
The current door of the municipal museum is divided into two sections. The lower one is a linteled opening, framed by a thick and broken moulding. In the upper part there is a relief that represents the noble coat of arms of the Sanabria family inside a window. On both sides there are highly decorated scrolls, pyramids, vases with flowers and very bulky plant motifs. Above this shield is a cross framed by plant motifs.
The hermitage of Santo Domingo has a facade of great simplicity and plainness. It is built in well-cut reddish sandstone (regular ashlars). It is a semicircular arch with a decorated and projecting keystone. It is supported by two smooth jambs, with geometric capital. Its spandrels are decorated with geometric shapes. It is topped with a very protruding cornice.
The interior of the house is organized around a square, two-story courtyard. The first is porticoed with columns and in the second there are sun galleries, formed by right feet and footings with wooden balustrades. The rooms revolve around this courtyard.
In the lower part is the museum’s permanent exhibition. We can see elements of the archaeological heritage that take us back to the prehistoric period of Alcázar (carving cores, polished axes, cleavers, sickle teeth, arrowheads, …), to the Bronze Age (hand mill, bowls, carinated vessels … rescued in the hut bottoms of the archaeological site of Las Saladillas) and the Iron Age.
The star pieces are the Roman mosaics found in the urban area of Alcázar de San Juan during several archaeological campaigns carried out in the Hispanic-Roman site of this town. Also on display are a series of Roman construction materials and equipment, domestic materials and a series of movable goods from the Hispano-Roman site of Alcázar de San Juan.
In a small room the painting of the artist Ángel Lizcano Monedero from Alcazaba is exhibited, where some of his work is shown.
ÁNGEL LIZCANO MONEDERO
Painter born in Alcázar de San Juan in 1846 and died in Leganés in 1929, he painted a lot of genre, historical and bullfighting paintings; he received several medals at the National Exhibition of Fine Arts, illustrated many books, including the National Episodes of Galdós or Don Quixote. He is considered by the critics of his time and the present, a worthy representative of the second generation of Goyaesque painters. His painting is today very well recognized in the museum field and in the art market.
The upper part of the museum houses temporary exhibitions.
