| Name | Salvador Natural History Collection |
| Description | The Natural History Cabinet was created by the Salvador Family at the beginning of the eighteenth century and continued to grow over two centuries and three generations. The Salvadors were a family of chemists that lived in Ample Street, in Barcelona. In the nineteenth century the cabinet was moved to a farmhouse, La Bleda, in the county of El Penedès. However, Dr. Pius Font i Quer arranged for the cabinet to be brought back to Barcelona and in 1938, by decree of the Generalitat de Catalunya (the Catalan government), the cabinet was donated to Barcelona City Council and subsequently housed in the Barcelona Botanical Institute in 1945. The cabinet consists of various wooden items of furniture and a collection of books, documents and objects of natural scientific interest. This collection contains botanical, zoological and geological specimens, while the library includes books dating from the sixteenth to the end of the nineteenth centuries. Of most interest are the three incunabula, an edition of the Concordia Apothecariorum Barcinonensis and numerous key pre-Linnean botanical works. The cabinet was created via exchanges and purchases of items by the members of the Salvador family; the most active member of the family was Joan Salvador i Riera. All collection have been fully catalogued. 80% has been revised by specialists. Specimens have been cleaned and/or restored. Cabinet contains 9284 items. This cabinet is the oldest in Catalonia and contains the oldest herbarium in Spain. It acquired great prestige in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and was the first museum to open to the public in Barcelona. Eminent botanists such as Pèire Andre Pourret, Mariano Lagasca, Miguel Colmeiro and Antoni Cebrià Costa helped revise the herbarium. From April 2014 to April 2016 was exhibited at the Botanical Institute, a temporary exhibition dedicated to the Salvdor Family (http://museuciencies.cat/exposicio_temporal/salvadoriana/). In December 2014 the Collection Salvador was declared a National Cultural Interest (BCIN) by the Government of Catalonia (DOGC no. 6774 of 19.12.2014). |
