Museo del Patriarca

This guide to the Museo del Patriarca in Valencia begins with a strange gift: a live caiman shipped across the ocean from Peru to archbishop Juan de Ribera in the early sixteen hundreds, packed in seawater for months at sea. It follows the animal through Ribera's private menagerie and his death in 1611, into the seminary he spent his fortune building, where visitors still pass through the chapel antechamber on their way to paintings by Caravaggio and El Greco. Along the way you will hear how Valencian parents once used the creature as a household threat to keep children still during Mass. Look for it above the doorway on your right before you turn toward the Old Masters upstairs.