Saint Ignatius' School

The Old College of Saint Ignatius is a large building located on the current Vía de Sant Ignasi in Manresa, which housed the city’s first Jesuit academy. The college was founded in 1625 by the Aragonese nobleman Lupercio de Arbizu, just a few years after the arrival of the Society of Jesus in the city. It was the second Jesuit school established in Catalonia, after the College of Bethlehem (Colegio de Belén) in Barcelona.

Initially, the college was housed in the premises of the former Hospital of Saint Lucy (Santa Llúcia). The current building was constructed around the 1750s, undergoing numerous expansions throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. Its most distinctive feature is the cloister with semicircular arches, designed in a restrained style that bridges the Baroque and Neoclassical periods.

The Society of Jesus directed the college until 1892. It functioned as a secondary school, specializing in the humanistic studies typical of Jesuit education, such as Latin, grammar, rhetoric, and philosophy. The dining hall, assembly room, and classrooms were located on the ground floor, while the living quarters for teachers and students were on the upper floors. In 1892, the Manresa City Council seized the school’s facilities, marking the culmination of a century of serious tensions between the Jesuits and local authorities.

After becoming municipal property, the building continued to operate as a public school and a school of arts and trades. For a brief period, it was also used as a military barracks. Today, it houses the Manresa Museum and the Bages County Archive, and more recently, the Museum of the Baroque in Catalonia.