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Illustration of José Celestino Mutis as a 1700s priest-physician in a black cassock and white collar, holding a pressed plant specimen at a desk with botanical plates and a quill
Physician Cleric Scholar Atlantic Trade & the Golden Age1492–1808

José Celestino Mutis

Lived 1732–1808 (about 76 years)

Also known as
Celestino Mutis, Mutis

José Celestino Mutis was born in Cádiz on 6 April 1732. He studied medicine and surgery at the surgery college of his home city, finished his degree in Seville, then spent four years at the Hospital de Cádiz. Jorge Juan taught him astronomy, and Domingo Castillejo and Miguel Barnades taught him botany.

In 1760 he sailed for America as physician to the new viceroy of New Granada, Pedro Messía de la Cerda, and reached Santafé de Bogotá in February 1761. He spent the last 48 years of his life there. He became a priest, introduced the Copernican system in a lecture at the Colegio del Rosario, and spent about 25 years on the cinchona research behind El arcano de la quina, his one finished work. In 1783 he was named director of the Royal Botanical Expedition of New Granada, which gathered 5,393 plates of the region's plants. Alexander von Humboldt stayed with him for two months in 1801. Much of his work stayed unpublished, so he is remembered above all as a promoter of science.

He died in Bogotá in 1808. Back in Cádiz, a street, a municipal library and a park carry his name. To set him in his home city, follow the Cádiz old town walk and browse things to do in Cádiz.

Places to see

Trimmed topiary cypresses and palm trees lining the central promenade of Parque Genovés in Cádiz
Parque Genovés
Regionalist tiled garden promenade of the Alameda Clara Campoamor running beside the northern sea wall and Bay of Cádiz
Alameda & Northern Walls Walk

In their time

  1. Atlantic Trade & the Golden Age

    1492–1808

    After 1492 Cádiz grew as a port for the Americas, sacked by the English in 1596 and fortified in response. In 1717 the Casa de Contratación moved here from Seville, and merchant families built the watchtower houses, the cathedral and the baroque oratories of the old town.

    1. José Cadalso

      1741–1782 Historical figure

      José Cadalso (1741-1782), Enlightenment writer and soldier born in Cádiz, author of Cartas marruecas. Read his story and find where he is buried today.

    Undated

    1. Cádiz Cathedral

      Monument

      Cádiz Cathedral's one ticket covers the crypt, the Clock Tower and the Cathedral Museum with its silver treasury. Check the official site for current hours.

    2. Castillo de San Sebastián

      Monument

      Castillo de San Sebastián is Cádiz's nine-sided sea fortress at the end of La Caleta. Its history, the 2024 reopening and what to check before you walk out.

    3. Castillo de Santa Catalina

      Monument

      Star-shaped sea fortress at the north end of La Caleta, built after the 1596 Anglo-Dutch sack. Free entry, exhibition rooms and a past as a military prison.

    4. Oratorio de la Santa Cueva

      Monument

      Two chapels, one below the other: a bare underground oratory and an oval upper chapel with three Goya canvases. €5 general entry; no Sunday hours listed.

    5. Oratorio de San Felipe Neri

      Monument

      Baroque oratory in Cádiz where the Cortes sat from 1811 and the 1812 Constitution was promulgated. Elliptical plan, rococo altar; hours and €5 ticket listed.

Read more

Famous people from Cádiz: nine historical figures imagined against the old town roofline and the cathedral dome at sunset
Famous People From Cádiz and the Places They Left
Golden-hour view of Cádiz, Spain, with the cathedral dome and the old town on its Atlantic peninsula
What Is Cádiz Known For? Gadir, 1812 and Carnival
Merchant watchtowers rising above the rooftops of Cádiz at dusk with trading ships in the bay, a cadiz atlantic trade history scene
Cádiz and the Atlantic Trade: When One Port Held the Indies