The Casa Museo Antonio Nariño commemorates one of the most important intellectual figures of Colombian independence — the man who translated the French Declaration of the Rights of Man into Spanish in 1793, an act of political courage that earned him years of imprisonment by the Spanish colonial authorities. Nariño lived in Villa de Leyva for the last years of his life and died here in 1823.
The museum occupies a colonial house near the Plaza Mayor, with exhibits on Nariño's life, his role in the independence movement, and the broader context of late colonial New Granada. For anyone interested in Colombian history, it is a more intellectually substantial visit than the other house museums in town — Nariño's story, less dramatic than Ricaurte's battlefield heroism, is in some ways more interesting: a wealthy colonial subject who risked everything for an idea.