Reference code

CAT INSPAI 59

Level of description

Collection

Title

Collection of the Geography and History Seminar of the Jaume Vicens Vives Institute

Date(s)

Dates of creation: 1849-1920. Collection formation dates: 1900-1930

Volume and support

1,408 magic lantern photographs, positive prints on glass made using the gelatin emulsion and silver developing process, black and white, 8.5 × 10 cm.

Name of producer(s)

Institut Jaume Vicens Vives

Producer history

In 1841, the Diputació de Girona, created in 1822, founded the College of Humanities of Girona, the predecessor of the Girona Provincial Institute of Secondary Education, established on September 17, 1845. At the time, it was associated with the Ministry of Development and Governance and was under the supervision of the dean of the University of Barcelona. Its original headquarters was Casa Cartellà (Placeta de l¿Institut Vell, 1), a former monastery of the mendicant Order of Friars Minor Capuchin, which currently serves as the offices of he Municipal Archives of Girona and the Girona Museum of History. The school was maintained thanks to provincial budgets, tuition fees and its own income. Through the law on public education or the Moyano Law (1857), it later came under the auspices of the Provincial Board of Public Education. At the time, the model centre was a model in terms of equipment and infrastructure. Starting in academic year 1887-1888, it fell under the auspices of the State, and in1903, it was named the Institut General i Tècnic de Girona. General baccalaureate studies, elementary and higher level teaching studies, and technical trade studies were taught there. During the Second Republic, the baccalaureate studies were reformed and the centre¿s name was changed to Institut Nacional de Segon Ensenyament de Girona. Under the Franco regime, the Ministry of National Education took charge of it. There were basic secondary education and a final exam, higher post-secondary education and a final exam, and a pre-university course. In 1967, its headquarters was moved to new premises on Carrer d¿Isabel La Catòlica, number 17, in the upper part of Girona. The 1970-1971 academic class adopted the name Institut de Segon Ensenyament Jaume Vicens Vives. Popularly known as the Girona Institute, its antiquity and history have made it the most emblematic of its kind in the Girona region. Currently, it has around 900 students and a faculty consisting of 87 teachers, who teach ESO (compulsory secondary education), and both LOE (Organic Law of Education) and International Baccalaureates.

Archive history

The collection of lantern plates was compiled in the early 20th century by some geography and history teachers at Institut Jaume Vicens Vives. They bought them from establishments that specialized in teaching materials, with the aim of illustrating different subjects through their projection. In 2017, the secondary school transferred the collection on loan and usage rights to the Diputació de Girona and to INSPAI, Image Centre. Between February and November of the following year, a restorer reviewed the state of conservation and restored the plates. From October to December 2018, a digital imaging specialist photographed the images in RAW format ¿ with a CaptureOne camera ¿ and converted them into TIFF format, that is, conservation master files. In January 2021, an expert report was made on the economic assessment of the collection. In 2021 an art historian documented and cataloged the collection and placed the plates definitively in INSPAI¿s repositories.

Details of entry

On September 26, 2017, the Diputació de Girona and the Institute signed a easement and usage rights agreement regarding the collection.

Scope and content

It is a collection of glass plates suitable for the projection of images by means of a magic lantern, a precursor to the cinematographic projector and slides. They were used in schools and higher centres of learning in the late 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century; in other words, they served an educational purpose. Specifically, these images, taken between 1849 and 1920, concern geography, history, art history and anthropology. They cover a wide geographical area: Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and America. The pedagogical content ranges from prehistory to the 20th century. From its descriptive label, it is evident that the provenance and authorship are widely varied: photographers and scientists in company laboratories, assisted by different people, created them under a brand image which, later, commercial distributors provided for educational centres and similar entities throughout Europe. These companies included J. Laurent & Cía (based in Madrid), Th. Benzinger Lichtbilderverlag (Stuttgart), Les Fils d¿Émile Deyrolle (Paris, natural history publications) and Material Escolar y Científico, SA (Barcelona). Individually, photographers such as Jean Baptiste Laurent Minier (1816-1886), Alphonse Roswag Nogier (1833-1900), Alfonso Vadillo García (1878-1945) and José Lacoste Borde (1874-1935?) are noteworthy.

Conditions for access

Free and open access.

Related documentation

The Emili Massanas Burcet fonds and collection, kept at INSPAI, contains one hundred lantern plates by the same distributor. Moreover, it is likely that other institutions across Europe have the same or similar lantern plates, as it was common for them to be distributed to secondary or higher education institutions through specialist establishments.

Author and date(s)

Roger Mirabent, September 2022. Reviewed by Sílvia Padrós, October 2023.

Sources

Descriptive labels of the original photographic artifacts. Administrative documentation related to the acquisition and technical treatment of the collection.