The story
In the chapel of Orihuela's old bishop's palace hangs the museum's most important painting, The Temptation of Saint Thomas Aquinas by Diego Velázquez, painted between about 1631 and 1633. It is one of the few works by Velázquez that can be seen in Spain outside the Prado.
The diocesan museum was founded in 1939, just after the Civil War, and for decades its collections were kept in the cathedral. On 24 February 2011 it opened in its present home in the bishop's palace, with room to show paintings, sculpture, silverwork, vestments and old books together.
Among the paintings are works by Juan de Juanes, the Valencian Renaissance master, by Pedro Orrente, a 17th-century painter of biblical scenes, and by Vicente López, later court painter in Madrid. The sculpture ranges from medieval statues of the 13th to 15th centuries to a Saint Roch by Francisco Salzillo, the 18th-century Murcian carver of painted wooden figures, and among the books are printed volumes going back to 1493.
