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FERNANDO BLANCO DE LEMA FOUNDATION MUSEUM.
Praza da Constitución, 25. 15270 - Cee (A Coruña).
Phone number.: 981.74.72.21.
e-mail: fundacioncee@hotmail.com
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Morning (tuesday to saturday)
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10:00 to 13:00
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Afternoon (tuesday to saturday)
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17:00 to 19:00
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Sunday and monday
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Closed
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The Museum has been open since 11 August 2001. Besides praising the philanthropist born in Cee, it shows the huge work of a Institution which, although belonging to the "past", is still very much present in the life of the village.
The Girls´s School has two floors perfectly fitted out in order to acommodate the important funds that have remained until our days after many ups and downs.
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On the ground floor there stands out a collection of paintings consisting of Fernando Díaz Carreño´s pictures wich used to decorate the school´s chapel, and, most importantly, some paintings by Federico de Madrazo, an important painter of the Spanish Romanticism who was commissioned by the Foundation´s employers to produce eight paintings in memory of Fernando Blanco and his executors between 1884 and 1888.
On the same floor we can also admire some of the musical instruments that were used in the music classes and which gave birth to the first music band in Cee, an "orfeón" or choral society, formed by 25 voices, and a "rondalla" of sixteen girls, who entertained all parties and cultural acts both in Cee and in its sorrounding villages.
There is also an area dedicated to the subject of drawing, with a series of illustrations, plasters and works made by the school´s pupils which are almost 100 years old.
Other pieces which stand out are the agricultural models made on scale and which were used in the Agriculture classes, a great map of Galicia made in stucco in 1909, clothes and religious objects (chalices, monstrance, incense burners), medicine containers from the chemist´s, and a large number of cultural, social and educational mementos of the village of Cee, where, without any doubt, the Foundation played an important role.
In order to finish with the first floor we must mention a piece which attracts most of out visitors´attention: the first telephone that we had in Cee and which was installed in the school: an 1887 Ericsson phone whose maintenance was paid for by the Foundation. Except for the taxes paid to the Treasury, the rest of the taxes collected were invested in different public works.
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What set the school in Cee apart from the other rural schools in Galicia was that Secondary School was also taught here, something which at the time only happened in the schools of the big cities.
What did that mean? Among other things, it meant having access to the so-called cabinets (buildings attached to the proffesorships where several devices and were available to demomstrate the different laws of Physics and Chemistry).
Following the education guidelines of that time (late nineteenth century), the schools where second cycle was taught were obliged to have Physics, Chemistry and Natural History Cabinets. In order to have these cabinets, schools have to meet three fundamental requirements: 1. Having large, spacious rooms; 2. Qualified teachers; 3. Having all the costly apparatus needed to teach the aforementioned subjects.
The school clearly met these conditions, something which would have been impossible without the great legacy of Fernando Blanco de Lema.
Thus, on this floor we can see the Physics Cabinet (hydraulics, mechanics of solids, air mechanism, acoustics, optics, heat, work and electricity), the Chemistry Cabinet and the Natural History Cabinet (minerals, fossils, dissected animals and molluscs), all of them displaying pieces that were bought during the years 1890-1891 in Paris.
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