Francesc Darder i Llimona

Francesc d'Assís Darder i Llimona (Barcelona, 2 October 1851 – Barcelona, 1918), better known as Francesc Darder, was a Spanish veterinarian and physician. He practised his profession while complementing it with his passion for natural history, collecting, and taxidermy, which drove him to open a shop dedicated to the dissemination and pedagogy of naturalism and, subsequently, to found zoos and museums.

Biography He was the son of Jeroni Darder y Feliu (Barcelona, 1804 – 1 February 1889), a veterinary inspector at the Barcelona slaughterhouse, and Carme Llimona i Junoy. The grandson of veterinarians on his father's side, he was the brother of Antoni Darder i Llimona (Barcelona, 1858–1917), who researched trichina and presided over the Official College of Veterinarians of Barcelona. He married Joaquima Rodés i Bosch (1852–1937) in 1875, with whom he had four children: Jeroni, Paquita, Pere, and Joan Baptista Darder Rodés (Barcelona, 1887–1944), a pulmonologist.

He completed his secondary education at the Instituto de Gracia. At eighteen, he moved to Madrid and entered the School of Veterinary Medicine, combining his studies with compulsory military service. In June 1873, he obtained the title of first-class veterinarian. Later, he began studying medicine at the University of Barcelona and took up taxidermy studies.

After graduating, he joined the family business with his father. To expand it, he sold animal collections and teaching materials for educational centres, frequently travelling to Paris and London to acquire live animals and collections from their acclimatisation gardens. In 1880, he opened a new establishment on Aldana Street called “El conejar modelo barcelonés” (The Model Barcelona Rabbit Warren), dedicated to supplying materials for cuniculture and promoting the sale of articles for rabbit breeding.

He held the position of Sub-delegate for Veterinary Health of Barcelona until 1889. In 1887, he was appointed secretary of the Board of Directors of the Barcelona Society for the Protection of Animals and Plants, and in 1888, he participated in the organising committee of the International Congress of Natural Sciences, held during the Universal Exhibition. During his time as director, he collaborated with Salvador Castelló and Lluís Martí-Codolar in the selection and popularisation of the Prat breed of chicken. However, his methods and exhibitionist tendencies caused tension with the Barcelona Academy of Sciences, which ultimately led to his departure from the zoo. In the summer of 1910, he visited Banyoles and, enthused by its lake, proposed a repopulation plan to the authorities. On 26 October 1910, he organised the “Festa del Peix” (Fish Festival), releasing thousands of fish into the lake. Due to the success of this initiative, the City Council named him an Adopted Son of the city. Among the numerous animal taxidermy pieces and ethnological objects, catalogue piece number 1004 stood out: the embalmed body of an individual of African origin, adorned with a spear, a shield, a feather headdress, and a loincloth, displayed under a plaque that read: “Bushman, or perhaps Bechuana, from the Kalahari”.

The individual had been dug up and desecrated in Africa in the mid-19th century by the brothers Jules and Edouard Verreaux, who embalmed him in Cape Town and sent him to the Maison Verreaux in Paris. After the shop closed in 1878, the piece was acquired by Darder, who was unaware of its illicit origin. In the Banyoles museum, the body was displayed in a glass case and underwent annual maintenance with shoe polish to counteract the fading caused by the arsenic used in its preservation.

The exhibition of human remains alongside animals went unnoticed until 1991, when Alphonse Arcelin, a Haitian-born doctor living in Cambrils, visited the museum and began a solitary campaign to denounce what he considered an act of racism. With the impending 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, whose canoeing events were to be held on the Lake of Banyoles, Arcelin asked international figures such as Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, and Kofi Annan, as well as the African Union, to promote a boycott. This led the Government of Spain to pressure the Banyoles City Council to remove the piece from display, although some of the local population opposed this with slogans such as “The Negro is cultural heritage for us”. The remains were buried in Tsholofelo Park without traditional ceremonies, marking the end of a prolonged international controversy.