Museo Casa Mosquera

House museum of the four-time president and patriarch of the Mosquera family

The Mosquera family produced more bishops, presidents, and generals than any other in 19th-century Colombia, and this 17th-century mansion was their family seat. The museum preserves room after room of period furniture, family portraits, military uniforms, and the kind of intimate domestic objects that make a colonial house feel inhabited rather than embalmed.

Run by the University of Cauca. Allow forty-five minutes; guided tours in Spanish available on request.

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A story
Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera was president of Colombia four times and lost an arm in the Battle of Barbacoas. His preserved heart is kept in a small urn at the church of San Francisco — the rest of him is buried elsewhere. The house preserves his furniture, his correspondence with Simón Bolívar, and the unsettling military relics of his career.

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