In Gijón you can visit the house where Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos was born, now the Museo Casa Natal de Jovellanos, on Plaza de Jovellanos, with free admission, and the chapel of Los Remedios, where his mausoleum stands. Also the Antiguo Instituto, the building put up for the Real Instituto Asturiano de Náutica y Mineralogía he founded in 1794.
In Gijón a square, a street and a former school bear his name, and not by chance. Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos was born here in 1744, came back here, away from the court, in 1790, and here, in 1794, opened a school of navigation and mineralogy for a port town with its eyes on coal. Today you can visit the house where he was born, where he is also buried, and the building that was put up for his institute.
A man from Gijón at court
He was born on 5 January 1744 into a family that was noble but had no fortune; he was the older brother of the poet Josefa de Jovellanos. He studied in Oviedo, Ávila, El Burgo de Osma and Alcalá, and by 1767 he was already a magistrate at the Real Audiencia de Sevilla. In 1778 he moved to Madrid, and within a few years he had joined the Real Academia de la Historia (1779), the Academia de San Fernando (1780) and the Real Academia Española (1781). He wrote on agriculture, education and economics: his “Informe sobre la Ley Agraria” (Report on the Agrarian Law) was published in 1795.
Langreo's coal
In 1790, after the fall of Francisco de Cabarrús, he was sent away from the court and settled in Gijón. He travelled around Asturias, Cantabria and the Basque Country studying coal mines, and those journeys produced nine reports; in 1793 his efforts secured a partial liberalisation of mining. He also thought about how to get that coal down to the sea. According to Wikipedia, he judged it unfeasible to make the Nalón navigable and, around 1794, proposed a road between Langreo and Gijón.
He didn't live to see it. The Carretera Carbonera (Coal Road) was built between 1840 and 1842, was Spain's first toll road and stopped being a coal road in 1852, when the Ferrocarril de Langreo railway came into service.
A school for sailors and miners
The Real Instituto Asturiano de Náutica y Mineralogía was his idea: its statutes date from 1 December 1793, and Jovellanos gave the inaugural speech on 7 January 1794. Classes began in the family house, in Cimadevilla, while a building of its own was being prepared. It was designed by Juan de Villanueva and the first stone was laid in 1797; work stopped around 1800, with Jovellanos out of favour, and by 1807 only the ground floor was finished. Ricardo Marcos Bausá completed it in 1897, with a simplified version of the design.
Today it's the Centro de Cultura Antiguo Instituto, on Calle Jovellanos, home to Gijón's Fundación de Cultura and Universidad Popular, with exhibition rooms and classrooms. Vivir Asturias lists it as a historic-artistic monument since 1974.
Minister, prisoner and exile
On 10 November 1797 he accepted the post of Minister of Grace and Justice; he left it on 16 August 1798 and returned to Gijón. On 13 March 1801, Godoy ordered his arrest and had him sent to Mallorca. He was held first at the Carthusian monastery of Valldemossa, where he wrote his “Memoria sobre la educación pública” (Report on Public Education), and then imprisoned in Bellver Castle, until 6 April 1808. He kept a diary between 1790 and 1808.
He died of pneumonia on 27 November 1811 in Puerto de Vega, a fishing village in Navia. His remains moved several times: Gijón cemetery, a mausoleum in the church of San Pedro from 1842, the Escuela de Comercio in 1936 and, since 1940, the chapel of Los Remedios, next to the house where he was born.
The house where he was born
The house is a palace built between the late 14th and early 16th centuries and altered several times. Work to turn it into a museum began in the 1950s, and it opened as one in 1971. Today it's the Museo Casa Natal de Jovellanos, on Plaza de Jovellanos, devoted to him and to the city's artistic heritage, and next to it is the chapel of Los Remedios, with his mausoleum.
Admission is free. According to Turismo Asturias, it opens Tuesday to Friday from 9:30 to 14:00 and from 17:00 to 19:30, and on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays from 10:00 to 14:00 and from 17:00 to 19:30. It's closed on Mondays, on 1 and 6 January, on Carnival Tuesday, on 15 August and on 24, 25 and 31 December. For a winter afternoon in Gijón it makes a good plan: the museum, the chapel and, afterwards, the Antiguo Instituto, on the street that bears his name.
Checked
Facts checked in October 2026 against: Wikipedia (Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, Carretera Carbonera and Río Nalón), Vivir Asturias (Centro de Cultura Antiguo Instituto Jovellanos) and Turismo Asturias (Museo Casa Natal de Jovellanos).
Quick questions
What are the opening hours of the Museo Casa Natal de Jovellanos?
Tuesday to Friday from 9:30 to 14:00 and from 17:00 to 19:30, and on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays from 10:00 to 14:00 and from 17:00 to 19:30. It's closed on Mondays. Admission is free.
Where is Jovellanos buried?
Since 1940, in the chapel of Los Remedios, next to the house in Gijón where he was born. He died on 27 November 1811 in Puerto de Vega, in Navia.
What became of the Real Instituto Jovellanos founded?
Its building is now the Centro de Cultura Antiguo Instituto, on Calle Jovellanos, home to Gijón's Fundación de Cultura and Universidad Popular, with exhibition rooms and classrooms.