Located on the square of the same name, occupying what was once the old Convent of the Merced Calzada, founded by St. Peter Nolasco on a land donated by Fernando III after conquering Sevilla , the Museo de Bellas Artes de Sevilla was founded as a "museum of paintings" by a Royal Decree of September 16, 1835, with works from convents and monasteries disentailed by the Mendizabal´s liberal government . Since then the Museum of Fine Arts in Seville has become the most important museums in Spain, after the Prado Museum. The building had suffered multiples transformations in the seventeenth century, by determination of Fray Alonso de Monroy, general of the Order since 1602. The architect and sculptor Juan de Oviedo de la Bandera started the construction in 1603 traces, which began with the demolition of the old Moorish building. In 1612 the temple was completed and almost half a century later the rest of the factory, thereby constituting one of the mo...