Notice the grand, pale peach stucco facade on your left featuring neat rows of wrought-iron balconies and a bright blue vertical banner hanging near the corner. We are standing outside the L'Iber Lead Soldier Museum, just a quick walk from the Portal of the Valldigna we saw a moment ago.
This elegant building is the Palace of the Marquis of Malferit, originally a Gothic manor house from the turn of the fifteenth century. But inside is something entirely unexpected. It houses the largest and most complete museum of historical miniature figures in the entire world.
This staggering collection is the result of one man's lifelong obsession. Álvaro Noguera Giménez was a Valencian businessman who spent decades building this collection, fulfilling a childhood dream. He amassed over a million miniature figures. He passed away in 2006, just a year before the museum finally opened, but his son, a historian and archaeologist, took the reins to share this incredible tiny world with the public.
Today, there are over ninety-five thousand figures on display across sixteen massive rooms. The museum is actually a heartfelt tribute to the Valencian toy industry, which relied heavily on lead soldier manufacturing from the nineteen sixties through the nineteen eighties. But if you think this is just endless rows of generic green army men, you are in for quite a surprise.
The level of detail in here borders on madness. Take the Battle of Almansa exhibit. This diorama, which is a three-dimensional miniature model, features over ten thousand individual figures recreating a decisive battle of the Spanish War of Succession. The creators were so dedicated to historical accuracy that they even painted tiny, individual leaves onto the three-cornered hats of the specific soldiers who historically wore them for camouflage.
Then there is the Napoleonic room. It contains incredibly rare pieces by a maker named Lucotte. These were the very first fully rounded, three-dimensional lead soldiers ever made, and the museum has pieces from the exact same series that Napoleon Bonaparte himself gave to his own son.
The museum goes far beyond military history, too. The very first room you enter celebrates Tirant lo Blanch, a famous Valencian chivalric novel published in 1490, showing knights in a grand tournament. There is a Prehistory room featuring a mammoth hunt, a display recreating the assassination of Julius Caesar, and even a room dedicated to everyday life and pop culture. That one features figures of Charlie Chaplin, Marvel superheroes, and high fashion icons like Balenciaga.
If you want to explore these tiny worlds yourself, the museum is closed on Mondays but generally open mid-days and late afternoons the rest of the week.
Feel free to admire the miniature history here before we head to the next stop, the Palace of the Merchants.
