The things that were Temporary exhibition

Talking about the birth of museums, the Italian architect and historian Leonardo Benevolo pointed out that, in the mid-18th century, the acquisition of antique and collectible objects, initially a form of private entertainment, a hobby of the noble elites, became an issue of public interest. He said this, of course, because the democratisation of culture within the framework of Enlightenment thought fed collective memory, henceforth shared and accessible, with enormous quantities of artistic objects to be kept and preserved, such as sculptures, paintings, fabrics, books and engravings. At the same time, the emergence of modern archaeology as a valid scientific discipline for understanding the past through the study of material remains entrusted the incipient museums with the noble mission of safeguarding the finds -often enclosed in endless rows of display cases- and transmitting a narrative suitably adapted to each social context. This structural duality led to a debate between the need to preserve and the need to exhibit, between beauty and scientific knowledge, between abundance and sobriety, between rubble and ruins. Today, we know that these are not necessarily antagonistic concepts.

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In 2019, this collection of objects was found in a building in the Plaça del Vi, used as fill material for a vault. It includes basins, bowls, jugs, pots and tiles which probably came from a defective consignment, so were never used for the purpose for which they were made. In 2014, in the Jewish quarter, pottery fragments dating from the 15th century were discovered, which would have been used as filters for the water of the mikveh, the Jewish ritual bath. The objects form part of the collections of the Girona History Museum and the Museum of Jewish History.