The Regional Museum (former college of Saint Ignatius)

It was founded in 1625 thanks to private donations and also the Town Council who donated the former hospital of Saint Lucia so that the Jesuits could set up another school. This would be the second school of the Society of Jesus after the Bethlehem school in Barcelona and the predecessor of the Jesuit schools in Gracia and Sarria (Barcelona). In 1750 it was extended to its present size and the current building was renovated in the nineteenth century. A central courtyard connects the different wings of the building. It consists of a square with an arcaded neoclassical-style cloister in the centre. The Jesuits managed the school until 1892. José Pignatelli was a pupil there, who would later restore the Society of Jesus to its former glory. The reputation of the school grew due to its strict discipline and it became one of the preferred educational centres of wealthy families throughout Catalonia. In his memoirs, the writer Josep M. de Sagarra explains that his father, who was a student of the school, endured the “Siberian cold” of Manresa because, “Jesuit education was still an advocate of the austerity which marked the era of the Counter-Reformation.” After the departure of the Jesuits in 1901, the town School of Arts and Crafts was opened. Throughout the twentieth century, the building has also been used for other functions, such as military barracks, a laboratory and a library. Finally, in 1941 the Historical Archive and Museum of the city was created there.

The museum conserves an important collection of baroque altarpieces produced in Manresa during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. All these altarpieces were conceived as an object of devotion by the churches of the city following the Council of Trento (1545-1563); when all Parishes were asked to renew their liturgical material according to the new criteria. This fact caused an increase in demand and, in turn, the increase in the number of workshops throughout Catalonia, and close to home, the birth of the school of Manresa. Among the most important craftsmen were the Grau, Sunyer and Padró families. From the post-Ignatian period, there are collections dedicated to the War of the Spanish Succession, the painter Viladomat and the French War.