Portal de Murcia
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The institute Licenciado Francisco Cascales, in collaboration with the association Huerta Viva and the Platform for the Defense of the Cultural Heritage of Murcia, yesterday offered a conference and a guided tour on the occasion of his declaration of cultural interest (BIC).
The architectural value of the building, commissioned by Cardinal Luis Belluga in 1724 as the College of Theologians of San Isidoro, adds its importance to the educational history of the Region of Murcia.
Professor José Antimo Miravete explained the origin of the institute after the confiscation of Mendizabal, when the College of Theologians became in 1837 Provincial Institute of Second Education of Murcia, being the third of those founded throughout the country after the Palma de Mallorca and Guadalajara.
Its function as a center of secondary education has been practically constant up to the present, reaching stages of great splendor as an educational and cultural reference, treasuring a remarkable collection of scientific, artistic and bibliographic objects that are currently in the Alfonso X institute. From that initial period, in the mid-nineteenth century, the Institute had a Cabinet of Natural History that built the first botanical garden of Murcia in the old orchard of the convent of San Francisco, which later became the Botanical Garden of the Malecón.
At the beginning of the 20th century it was named the General and Technical Institute under the direction of Andrés Baquero, and the first classes of the University were taught in its classrooms.
José de Echegaray, Nobel Prize for Literature in 1904, Antonio García Alix and Juan de la Cierva Peñafiel, who were ministers of Public Instruction and Finance, or his son Juan de la Cierva Codorniú, inventor of the autogyro, have passed through this emblematic building.
With the development of the University of Murcia the Institute was losing prominence and social relevance.
After the Civil War it was renamed Instituto Alfonso X as the only center for public secondary education in Murcia.
After the construction in 1966 of a new building in the neighborhood of Vistabella where Alfonso X is moved, the old building will be the origin of the institutes Floridablanca and Infante D. Juan Manuel until his current name as Francisco Cascales.
The conference also mentioned the collection of paintings from the 18th century that are currently in the Alfonso X, and that, according to the statement of cultural interest, must be returned to the original building.
All the paintings are of religious theme and most of them were painted by Vicente Inglés for the old chapel of the College of Theologians, which later became the assembly hall of the Institute.
Huerta Viva, which has been the association responsible for the BIC application, will ask for the value of the building and for the paintings to be placed in their original place as indicated in the declaration, arguing that the collection of scientific and artistic objects, as well as the library, which are deposited in the Alfonso X and the MUSAX, are declared movable property linked to the educational history of the old Institute.
It will also request that the portraits of illustrious Murcians who were in the assembly hall be returned and that they be replaced by reproductions, since these are part of their decoration.
The transfer of these goods was carried out at a time when the concept of heritage conservation was very different from the current, being very easy to put a solution since the owner of all of them is the Autonomous Community.
For Huerta Viva, the movable property is an inseparable part of the building, whose greatest value lies in having been for a long time the center of the educational, scientific and cultural activity of the Region, and cradle of numerous educational institutions, among which is the University of Murcia.
Source: Agencias
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