On some myths and phantoms of Spanish science

The history of Spanish science brims with living dead figures: intermittent and fleeting presences, barely buried or barely known corpses. These are the phantoms of Spanish science. This paper will focus on the Prado Museum, a space haunted by such ghosts, for museums are not only places of memory, but also of oblivion. We will pay particular attention to two melancholic portraits, that of Jovellanos by Goya and a self-portrait by Ramón y Cajal, the renowned histologist of the nervous tissue.