Up to 5 euros

How were the magistral formulas (medical preparations) prepared in the 15^th, 16^th or 17^th centuries? The pharmacy of Llívia, one of the oldest in Europe, reveals this mystery. It was already in existence in 1415. One of the first owners was the apothecary Jaume Esteve and the pharmacy remained in the family for 23 generations. Finally, in 1942, Lleó Antoni Esteve closed it down and it was given over to the care of the City Council and, later, to the Province of Girona.

Since 1981, the pharmacy equipment has formed part of the Municipal Museum of Llívia. The furniture, laboratory instruments, preparation and even glass jars from the 19th century have been preserved. Notable are the wooden Renaissance boxes painted with portraits of saints, sages, apothecaries and doctors.

However, the most distinctive characteristic of the collection are the albarello or cobalt blue ceramic pharmacy jars. The smaller jars, which used to contain the most precious or dangerous products, are kept in the cordialer. This piece of polychrome 18th-century furniture is one of the most eye-catching items in the collection. Also preserved is the library which contains, among other things, the book of formulas. The pharmacy space is contextualised by a series of audiovisual and digital resources.

The cultural life of Cervera has a hero: the historian, archivist and archaeologist Augustine Duran i Sanpere. Towards the end of the 1950s, he set up the Museum of Cervera and, in 1963, in the midst of an agricultural transformation, he created the Museu del Blat i la Pagesia (Wheat and Farming Museum) to document the life and work before the industrialisation of the Catalan fields.

The present Museu Comarcal de Cervera (Regional Museum of Cervera) is, in some ways, the legacy of this great man of culture. It is the sum of the old Museum of Cervera, the Wheat and Farming Museum and, finally, the Casa Museu Duran i Sanpere (Duran i Sanpere House Museum), the birthplace of the historian.

And this ancestral home is where the headquarters of the Museum is based. On the ground floor you can see the permanent exhibitions that showcase the artistic and historical collections of the old Museum of Cervera. You also take in the first floor and discover how a wealthy family lived in the 19th century. Much of the furniture and household objects have been retained, including the library of Agustín Duran i Sanpere, and his collection of still and film cameras.

The other site is the Wheat and Farming Museum, of an ethnographic character. It grew out of the call of Duran i Sanpere to the farmers of the region to try to bring together all those objects of the field that had fallen into disuse. It was created with a collection of more than 600 objects. Currently the museum is undergoing refurbishment.

The roar of the water, the smells, the noise of carts and workers were, from the end of the 18th century, a constant presence on the banks of the Rec d’Igualada (irrigation channel). And it is here that new tanneries began to be built. The Leather Museum of Igualada and the County of Anoia recalls this industrial past of the city, linked to leather and also to the manufacture of wool. Conceived in 1954, it is one of the first monographic leather museums in Europe. It also forms part of the Territorial system of the Science and Technology Museum of Catalonia (mNACTEC).

The two buildings that make up the Museum, the industrial evolution of the Rec area is summarised. The main location is in the Cal Boyer cotton factory, an example of strong industrial growth at the end of the 19th century. The other, Cal Granotes, a pre-industrial building (18th century) where traditional vegetable tanning of the leather, particularly of ox and cow, was carried out. It is currently the only tannery museum in Catalonia.

The permanent exhibition is divided into different areas. Particularly notable is the room “L’Home i l’Aigua” (Man and Water) which addresses topics such the role water plays in health, the economic uses of water and the elevation of the water and its transport. It is an innovative museum space where, in the central section, the visitor will find a water channel where they can experiment with various hydraulic devices.

In the room "Dels clots als bombos" (From the pits to the drums) the historical development of the tannery trade is explained: from how the leather was tanned in 1890 (making the connection to Cal Granotes) to the tanning barrels and other machinery that is now  powered by electricity.