The story of pharmacy in Croatia, which is celebrating its 750th anniversary this year, began on the central town square in Trogir, which is why the “750 Years of Pharmacy in Croatia” exhibition was opened in Rijeka today. The organisers of the exhibition, set up in Rijeka’s Sugar Palace, are the JGL Pharmacy Museum and the City Museum of Rijeka, and it will introduce visitors to the many historical features in the field of pharmacy over the past centuries.
“Our country inherits a long pharmaceutical tradition that has always been equal to European trends. Since JGL is celebrating 30 years of existence this year, and the JGL Pharmacy Museum is celebrating a successful work anniversary today, we consider ourselves responsible to honour pharmacists and the entire pharmaceutical profession. Likewise, with this exhibition, we are fulfilling one of the basic tasks of the Museum, and this is the research and presentation of the history of pharmacy in Croatia, with the aim of preserving everything important to us from history for the future,” said Ivo Usmiani, President of the Board of JGL.
To show that pharmacy is one of the most prominent professions that Croatia can be very proud of is evidenced, for example, by one of the six parts of the exhibition, dedicated to the 120th anniversary of the publication of the “Hrvatsko-slavonski ljekopis”. This concerns the first pharmacopeia in the Croatian language, which the profession declared the best in Europe.
“It is always exciting to travel off into history and remember how something came into existence and whose heritage we inherit. Thanks to notarial records from 1271, we have the names of the first known participants in our country’s pharmacy – Muccius, as a seller and Rolandino Capponi, as a buyer, in the pharmacy in Trogir. These two have remained forever written in the history of Croatian pharmacy. And the exact date of the Trogir agreement, 29th October, is marked as the Day of Pharmacies. Apart from Trogir, pharmacies in Dubrovnik, Zagreb and Rijeka also contributed to the history of pharmacy, and all the exhibition’s visitors will have the opportunity to learn about their interesting material. We are pleased that the JGL Pharmacy Museum and the City Museum of Rijeka are introducing visitors to the history of pharmacy in Croatia with this exhibition,” said Marin Pintur, the head and curator of the JGL Pharmacy Museum.
Ervin Dubrović, Director of the City Museum of Rijeka, also believes that the exhibition about 750 years of pharmacy in Croatia is a great event for museums. “We are glad that this exhibition is being held in our Sugar Palace, and we are even gladder that the JGL Pharmacy Museum is celebrating the first anniversary of its successful work. With the opening of the Palace and the installation of the permanent exhibition of Rijeka’s recent history, as well as the opening of the JGL Pharmacy Museum, we now have important museum houses and have significantly strengthened Rijeka’s museum image. By organising such specialised exhibitions in collaboration with successful companies, such as JGL from Rijeka, we all benefit. This is an excellent promotion of the profession, which has its representatives in Rijeka, and it is, of course, a promotion of our Museum in the Palace, which will also soon celebrate the first anniversary of its work.”
The exhibition is open 22 th October 2021 until 9th January 2022.
