Goya remains an enigmatic figure of considerable interest to medical historians. There is limited information about his family background and in 1793 he suffered an illness which has been the subject of much speculation since then. That the illness was a functional psychosis is supported by Goya's depictions of mental hospital scenes and by recent data from the Real y General Hospital in Zaragoza which indicates that there was a strong family history of mental disorder in the family of Goya's mother.