Museo de las Ferias

The Museo de las Ferias showcases the significance of medieval fairs in Medina del Campo, featuring art, historical artifacts, and financial documents from the 15th and 16th centuries.

Planning your visit

Medina del Campo held the most important trade fairs in Castile during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and they were financial rather than merely commercial events — the fairs functioned as a clearing house where bills of exchange were settled, credit extended and debts discharged across European trade networks, making this small Castilian town a node in early modern finance.

The Museo de las Ferias covers that: contracts, ledgers, bills of exchange, coins and the documentation of commerce, alongside religious art and objects that circulated through the fairs. The Simón Ruiz archive, the papers of a sixteenth-century merchant-banker, is a source of international importance for economic history.

Medina del Campo also holds the Castillo de la Mota, a substantial brick fortress, and the house where Isabella the Catholic died in 1504.

Allow an hour. The main booking is a general admission ticket including the archive. Current availability is shown below.