Sit tibi terra levis Maribel

We started the year with sad news from Córdoba: the loss of our colleague – and friend – Maribel Gutiérrez. Archaeologist, illustrator, great communicator and lover of Roman culture, Maribel was also director and co-founder of the history teaching company Sexto Mario, with which she had participated in different editions of Badalona’s Roman festival, Magna Celebratio .

Her enthusiasm, her creativity and her ability to convey all the content – whatever it was – in an attractive and suggestive way was an inspiration to us every time she visited us. In fact, with her usual kindness and generosity she did not hesitate to share her knowledge with our team of educators, whenever we asked. She will always live in our memory.

Sit tibi terra levis (may the earth be light to you), Maribel.

 

 

 

 

A piece with history

Last December, the Museum opened a photo exhibition that reviews everyday life and shows aspects of the city and its people during the winter months of different years.

When we were preparing it, a photograph really caught our attention because we thought we recognized a piece that appeared in it and is kept in the Museum’s collection. Having checked and confirmed the fact, we explain to you which piece it is and what we know about it, and relate it also to the photograph.

It is a standard (MB 2057) on which the text Escuela pública de párvulos is embroidered on one side and the coat of arms of Badalona (prior to 1914) on the other. The photograph in which it appears corresponds to the celebration of the Festival of the Tree on March 4th, 1906, which took place in the area of the Rosés hill.

The first tree festivals in Catalonia took place in the spring of 1899 and soon spread throughout the territory. It was a day that wanted to spread the importance of trees as regulators of the water cycle, protectors against erosion and shapers of the landscape.

The Badalona celebration that appears in the original image, made by the Sayol Brothers and of which a 13 x 18 cm glass negative is preserved in the Museum’s Image Archive, was attended by the local authorities and the representatives of Badalona and also some from Barcelona. After the events and parliaments, more than 2,000 snacks were distributed to the students of the schools that attended.

If you want to know all the details of this celebration, do not miss the news published by El Eco de Badalona, dated March 10th, 1906:

https://www.museudebadalona.cat/arxiu/hemeroteca/el-eco-de-badalona

 

Standard Escuela pública de párvulos (Badalona City Council)[before 1906]. MB 2057
Tree Festival in Badalona, 4th March 1906. Germans Sayol/MB. Arxiu Josep M. Cuyàs.

 

Don’t miss the lectures of “Archaeological novelties”

You can now retrieve the four talks from this year’s ARCHAEOLOGICAL NOVELTIES cycle, on the Badalona Museum’s YouTube channel.

Lecture by Joan Ferrer Jané

 

Lecture by Maria Font Puigsech and Esther Gurri Costa

 

Lecture by Jordi Ardiaca and Clara Forn

 

Lecture by Isabel Rodà de Llanza and Diana Gorostidi

 

Some of the city’s historical censuses and registers available online

You can consult online some of the oldest registers and censuses of Badalona that are preserved in the Historical Archive of the City of Badalona (AHBDN). An essential source that we now put on the Museum’s website, available to researchers and the general public, interested in the history of our city.

The Population Census is the relationship of the demographic, economic and social data of a population, in this case, Badalona. The information collected – address, people’s names, sex, age, marital status, level of education and other economic data – changes little between the different registers. The censuses preserved in the Historical Archive of the City of Badalona go from the 19th century to 1940, but in this first phase it is only possible to consult online an incomplete census dated to the 19th century, and those of 1857 and 1860.

Regarding the municipal register of inhabitants, it is the registration of people who live in the municipality carried out by the City Council with the function of accrediting residence in a specific address. The AHBDN keeps one of the oldest registers in Catalonia, the one from 1717, which can now be consulted online together with the rest of the registers kept in the archive until 1914. The rest of registers, which reach up to the year 1945, they still won’t find them on the web.

Although both censuses and registers collect information on the same inhabitants, there are some differences in terms of their purpose and content. While the census has a statistical nature and is carried out at state level with the aim of collecting demographic and social information on the number and distribution of the population, the registers are carried out by the municipalities and have a purely administrative function.

With this new resource, the range of tools for people who want to do research is expanded, while at the same time ensuring the conservation of these important historical funds, avoiding manipulation that could deteriorate them.

 

VIEW THE PAGE OF POPULATION CENSUS ONLINE

VIEW THE PAGE OF MUNICIPAL REGISTER OF INHABITANTS

 

Celebrate Castaween with a Roman mask

Autumn is the time of Bacchus, of harvest and of wine, especially of this sweet wine that tastes so good to accompany chestnuts and panellets!

This year we propose to Romanize your Castanyada festival – whichever version you celebrate – with a mask that reproduces the Roman theatrical mask that decorates a lantern from the 1st century AD, which you can see in our Museum.

Although the Romans did not have any specific festival for this date, they did have some related to autumn and grapes such as the Meditrinalia (October 11) which was a celebration to taste the must, checking its quality

On the other hand, Bacchus was also the protector of the theatre. Did you know that actors in Greek and Roman times wore masks so that the audience could quickly recognize the role they were playing? In this case, ours would be a tragic mask that, for sure, made the spectators suffer a lot.

We have made an interpretation of this piece, garnishing it with spiders and cobwebs, so that you can enjoy it during these days. If you wear it, you’re sure to make your friends jealous, while you torment them with some very tragic story.

DOWNLOAD MASK

 

Auriga Award for the exhibition Bacchus, the masks of the god

In 2019, the exhibition Bacchus, the masks of the God, produced by the Museum of Badalona and curated by Esther Gurri, curator of the same Museum, was distinguished by the magazine Auriga – the only Catalan publication dedicated to classic culture – with the Musa Prize for temporary exhibitions on the ancient world, sharing it equally with the exhibition Archeology in Exile. The Museum of Archeology of Catalonia and the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) of the MAC Barcelona.

Due to the pandemic and the resulting complications, the awarding of this distinction was postponed indefinitely and has now been carried out as part of the 2023 edition.

Bacchus, the masks of the God was inaugurated on March 28th, 2019 in Badalona, and focused on the origins, meanings, worship and symbologies of this god based on a wide display of pieces from various museums Catalans. The exhibition could also be seen at the MAC Empúries (from June 15 to September 15, 2019) and at the Vinseum in Vilafranca del Penedès (from March 20 to August 20, 2020) and arrived , thus, to thousands of visitors from all over the territory.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Museum collaborates in the celebration of World Cancer Research Day

On Sunday, September 24th, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., the Museum will host different talks and workshops on the occasion of World Cancer Research Day, organized by the Friends of Can Ruti, with the collaboration of the City Council of Badalona and the Museum

The lectures will be attended by doctors Anna Martínez-Cardús (B·ARGO and CARE-IGTP), Núria Mulet (B·ARGO-ICO and CARE-IGPT), Sofia España (B·ARGO-ICO and CARE-IGPT) and Eva Martínez-Balibrea (PROCURE-ICO and CARE-IGPT), researchers from the Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO) and the Germans Trias i Pujol de Badalona Research Institute (IGPT).

Admission is free with limited seating.

DOWNLOAD THE PROGRAM

 

Museum and Historic Archive’s opening hours. August 2023

During the month of August, the Museum of Badalona will be open from Tuesday to Sunday from 10 am to 2 pm.

The temporary exhibition 50 YEARS. CAMÍ. SCULPTURES can be visited during the same opening hours.

The House of the Dolphins, the House of the Ivy and the Historical Archive will be closed during the month of August.

 

 

The new issue of Carrer dels Arbres magazine 2023 available online

The new issue of the magazine of the Museum of Badalona, Carrer dels Arbres, revista digital d’història i patrimoni de Badalona, corresponding to the year 2023, is now available on our website.

We hope the articles that includes will be of your interest.

Download magazine

 

 

The Museum of Badalona collaborates in the documentary about Pere Mitjans

The Museum of Badalona collaborates in the documentary about Pere Mitjans that is being carried out by Badalona Comunicació. This is a historical documentary about the figure of Pere Mitjans, one of the first radio journalists from Badalona, who was condemned by the Franco dictatorship for having directed Ràdio EAJ 39 Badalona, during the Civil War.

The work uses audiovisual archives, photographs and press from the time which, in part, have been provided by the Museum. It also includes interviews with family members and historians, such as the one conducted on Tuesday, June 20th, with contemporary history professor Joan Villarroya i Font, which was recorded in the Historical Archive of the City of Badalona (AHBDN), managed by the Museum. The aim of this research is to review the life of Pere Mitjans and explore the role played by local radio in key moments of Badalona’s recent history.

 

 

Recording of the interview to Joan Villarroya i Font. 20 de juny 2023. Foto: F. García