Façade of the Royal Seminary of Bergara

The Royal Seminary of Bergara is one of the most prestigious institutions in Gipuzkoa and the wider Basque Country in the fields of education and scientific research, and has been so since the end of the 16th century through to the present day.  In support of this claim is the fact that in 1783, within the institution, a previously unknown chemical element called tungsten was discovered, in addition to the method for making platinum malleable. The first Botanic Garden in Gipuzkoa was established here, as well as the first meteorological observatory and the first Industrial College for training engineers in the Basque Country, and it was here in the Seminary where the first Natural Science collections (botany, zoology, mineralogy) took shape with purely scientific aims.