Ignacio Sala de Castellarnau (Esterri d’Àneu, 28/4/1902 – Valencia, 23/2/1973)

Ignacio Sala was a Jesuit naturalist, who excelled both in field work and in teaching natural sciences.

At the age of fifteen he joined the Society of Jesus in Gandía and worked in several of its centres, teaching natural sciences and geography, until he left for India, where he finished his teaching studies.

In 1929, together with the entomologist Longinos Navás, he studied insects in the jungle of Bombay, capturing several specimens of Neuroptera and Hymenoptera, as well as making other field observations on ornithology and zoology.

This stay in India and another of several years in the Netherlands (where he finished his theological studies and was ordained a priest) resulted in a large number of notes and collections, although, unfortunately, many were lost at customs post at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War.

When the war ended, he joined the Colegio San José in Valencia, belonging to the Jesuit Fathers, where he remained until his death, teaching Zoology, Botany, Geology and Physiology and writing several compendiums and synoptic tables on these subjects for the teaching of his high school students. He also took charge of the Natural Sciences Cabinet at the school, which he increased with valuable specimens and ordered and classified for more than thirty years until it became a veritable museum.

In addition to his teaching activity, he continued to collaborate with several journals (Arbor, Ibérica, Brotéria, Ceres...) and was a corresponding member of a large number of associations such as the Royal Spanish Society of Natural History, its equivalents in Lisbon and Bombay or the National Geographic Society. He also left a great mark on the local scene, due both to his contributions to the Valencian press and the extensive collection of birds of the Albufera that he assembled in the museum, and even to the role he played in the revival of the Naturist Vegetarian Society of Valencia (he was a vegetarian and militant naturist), of which he was "spiritual advisor" and founding member in its reopening in the 1960s, after the stoppage it suffered during the war and the post-war period.

More biographic information

• Eulogy published after his death in the journal Miscelánea zoológica

Donation

In 2003, the Society of Jesus ceded the "Padre Ignacio Sala Natural Science Collection", which came from the former museum of the Colegio de San José, to the University of Valencia by means of an agreement. The specimens are currently kept in the Museo de Historia Natural (Natural History Museum) of the university (and to a lesser extent in the Botanical Garden and in the Cavanilles Institute of Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology), while the bibliographic collection forms part of our library.

The bibliographic legacy includes more than 3,000 volumes including books and booklets, and more than 60 journal titles, which reflect both the subjects of the Natural Sciences collection and the wide-ranging interests of Ignacio Sala himself: agriculture, botany, zoology, medicine and even works on vegetarianism and naturism, with publication dates ranging from the 18th century to works published almost two decades after his death.

The works that make up the donation bear the following holding references:

• HMED Ignacio Sala (monographs and booklets)
• HMED Revistes IS (journals)

Works at the Catalogue of the University of Valencia

Follow the links to find out which works we have in the libraries of the University of Valencia;

• Works in which he appears as an author
• Works about him

Bibliographic selection as author

Monographs

• Biología. Cuadros sinópticos de fisiología, para estudiantes de Bachillerato. València: [s.n.], 1943
• Botánica. Cuadros sinópticos de citología, histología, organografía y sistemática vegetal, para estudiantes de Bachillerato. València: [s.n.], 1945
• Geologia. Cuadros sinópticos de mineralogía y litología, para estudiantes de bachillerato. València: [s.n.], 1945
• Zoología. Cuadros sinópticos de sistemática animal, ilustrados con láminas, para estudiantes de bachillerato y repaso para los exámenes de estado. València: [s.n.], 1948
• Entomología. Cuadros sinópticos de insectos, para estudiantes de bachillerato. València: Talleres tipográficos de Organización Bello, [ca. 1948]
• Manejo, aplicación y utilidad del microscopio, para los estudiantes de Bachillerato y Preuniversitario. València: Laboratorio de Biología del Colegio de San José, 1961

Journal articles

• “Nidos curiosos de la India”. Ibérica. 1933, n. 974
• “Las zoocecidias de las Indias Orientales Holandesas”. Ibérica. 1934, n. 1027-1028
•  “Rutas migratorias de las cigüeñas”. Boletín de la Real Sociedad Española de Historia Natural. 1943, vol. 41, p. 233-236
• “Ofensiva en Europa contra el crisomélido, Leptinotarsa decemlineata Say : trabajo presentado con motivo de su ingreso en la Sociedade Portuguesa de Ciências Naturais”. Bulletin de la Société Portugaise des Sciences Naturelles. 1943, v. 14, n. 18, p. 71-86
• “Guerra y criminalidad en el mundo animal. I: los verdaderos enemigos de los lepidópteros”. Arquivos do Museu Bocage. 1944, vol. 15, p. 53-84
• “Guerra y criminalidad en el mundo animal. II: himenópteros, ortópteros y pájaros depredadores de orugas de lepidópteros”. Arquivos do Museu Bocage. 1945, vol. 16, p. 89-100
• “Dinamismo de la castidad y su función biológica, psíquica y ascético-mística”. Espiritualidad. 1945, n. juliol
• “Catálogo de neurópteros de la India”. Brotéria, Série de Ciências Naturais. 1946, v.15, fasc. 3
• “Aves con pico anómalo”. Valencia avícola. 1950, v. 7, n.4
• “Distribución geográfica de los felinos”. Ibérica. 1957, n. 360, p. 25-28
• “El embriólogo Rev. P. Jaime Pujiula, S. J. (1869-1958)”. Brotéria. Série de ciências naturais. 1959, v. 28, n. 2-3, p. 95-104
• “Revolución y progreso agrícola en el Japón”. Ceres : revista nacional de economía agrícola. 1967, n. maig
• “Bionomía de los dípteros asílidos”. Brotéria. Série de ciências naturais. 1968, v. 37, n. 1-2, p. 87-93