At the end of 1854, a small anatomical museum was opened at number 135 on Calle de Atocha in Madrid. The exact location was the “fourth mezzanine on the right.” There, as its director relates, there was a collection of syphilitic anatomical lesions, deformities of all kinds, as well as a succulent collection of skulls of “criminals, idiots and monomaniacs”.
Up to this point, the matter could pass for one more eccentricity of the time, however, and here is the most fascinating part of this story, the museum was located in the director’s private home.
Apparently the idea of opening such a domestic cabinet of curiosities arose from a scientific trip he made to Paris. There, on the banks of the Seine, Pedro Gonzalez Velasco (1815-1882) had the opportunity to visit the Dupuytren Museum and observe hyperbolic tumors, hermaphrodite organs, fetal deformities, and two-headed children. He was so amazed at what he saw there that during the return trip he hatched the project of creating a similar museum in the Spanish capital.
From swineherd to surgeon
The origin of this picturesque character could not be more humble. He was born in Valseca de Boones, in the province of Segovia, where he worked during his childhood and adolescence as a swineherd and assistant to the town crier. At the age of twenty-two, and after the death of his parents, he moved to Madrid where he worked as a servant while studying medicine at night.
His tenacity was key for him to be able to finish his degree and for years later to obtain his doctorate in Medicine. He soon came to acquire some notoriety in the Spanish capital thanks to his skill with the scalpel. A late, unpredictable and dizzying professional success.
His work as a surgeon went hand in hand with his morbid interest in collecting all kinds of anatomical extravagance. The unstoppable expansions of his anthropological collection caused an overwhelming situation in his family home to the point of being forced to move.
Dr. Velasco moved to number 90 –currently 92- of Calle Atocha, taking with him both his anatomical collection and his belongings. The museum soon acquired a certain reputation and some of the most influential figures of the time passed through there, including King Amadeo of Savoy himself.
A giant in a glass case
In 1872 the museum became too small and it was then that Dr. Velasco decided to exalt his collection in a palace-museum, a project with an approximate cost of one million reais, a figure that was too high and that forced him to request state aid.
Despite the lack of response from the administration, the surgeon continued his efforts and just three years later the new museum space was inaugurated by King Alfonso XII. It was the birth of what we currently know as the National Museum of Anthropology.
In its beginnings it was a valuable cabinet of curiosities, made up of objects belonging to the three kingdoms of nature, ethnographic objects and teratological samples, a collection that placed our country at the forefront of Europe.
Among the current jewels in the collection of the Anthropological Museum is a giant from Extremadura –Agustin Luengo Chapel-, the tallest Spaniard in history with his 235 cm. Legend has it that he sold his body to Pedro González Velasco while he was alive in exchange for receiving 2.5 pesetas a day for as long as he lived.
A chimera as attractive as it is unreal, since there is no documentation to prove this transaction, what is known is that Agustín was born in Puebla de Alcocer (Badajoz) and that King Alfonso XII received him in audience. It is possible, but even of this we do not have plot security either, that the sovereign gave him a pair of boots that are equivalent to number 52. From then on, the history of the giant falls asleep in the mists of time to recover the light again in 1992.