SCHOOL OF ARTILLERY

1^st Period, Foundation (1764-790) Room 1

In these first years the grounds were defined for the exceptional education of artillery men and their subsequent professional career.

 The exhibition accounts for the access of Artillery to the management of foundries and the advances achieved in aiming systems by adding sights and rear sights to the pieces. In the glass cases there are displayed a bronze bust of Tomás Morla, student and teacher in the Alcázar, a replica of a cadet uniform from the foundation years and important books by Galileo, Newton, Vauban, Euclides, etc.

It focuses on the arrival of Louis Proust in Segovia to direct, instruct and do research in the Chemistry Laboratory that he founded in the neo-classical building next to the Alcazar. In this laboratory some important experiments were carried out, among them, those that would be the basis for the definition of Louis Proust's "Law of Definite Proportions"

We must mention the "Loygorri cannon", a splendid bronze cannon, some pieces of laboratory apparatus and flasks from the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries, a Chemistry Laboratory diorama from Proust's time, a scale model of a horizontal boring machine, the gunbore, and the miniatures that, together with those found in the four stages, are accompanied by a movable artillery train in this stage.

Above one of the angles of the macle there is a hot-air balloon that calls up the raising by the artillerists led by Proust in 1792 before the Royal Family at El Escorial. This was the first launching of a tethered balloon for purposes of military observation to be carried out in Europe.

The second and third periods are connected to each other by an area in the middle with a series of iconography of the Peninsular War and of Captains Daoíz and Velarde, heroes during that war, who had been cadets in the Alcázar.

The references to May 2^nd 1808 both in books and in iconography are worth mentioning, as well as a French piece of artillery, a bronze scale model of a mortar battery; and a cannon, the "Galopo", which symbolizes the Spanish Artillery that confronted the French in the Napoleonic invasion.

It begins between 1814 and 1816, when the School was re-established in Segovia after the French invasion and finishes in 1923 when "los Cine mil hijos de San Luís" (French troops) came into Spain.

This stage is characterized by the setting up of a new Chemistry Laboratory, its extension with the Natural History and Mineralogy Laboratory and its extraordinary collection of minerals purchased from the naturalist Gómez Ortega, which is one of the oldest and most complete collections known in Spain. In this room ten samples of this valuable collection are displayed as well as some splendid pieces of laboratory apparatus, the cannon "Lapersio", and a scale model of the first blast furnaces built in Trubia by Elorza, called "Daoíz" and "Velarde", which had a highly influential role both in that factory's industrial renewal and the Spanish iron and steel industry.

In 1839 the School returned to the Alcazar until 1862 when a fire destroyed the fortress, and it was moved to the Convent of San Francisco, where the Artillery Academy is sited nowadays.

In this room there are on exhibit a bronze breechblock cannon, magnificent precision balances, a scale model steam engine, thrusting and cutting weapons, and portable weapons manufactured in the artillery factories, ammunition, models of artillery pieces, etc.

Projects and reports on the change of the Eresma river bed, which was threatening the foundations of the Sanctuary of La Fuencisla, and the design of the railway line or of the roads in the province, were some of the artillery contributions to be emphasized in this stage.

To finish with, we can go into a semicircular tower where there is a glass case inside which there are several personal items related to the School and its cadets. The most important of them are a silver chapel set donated by Fernando VII, a small pouch and a cadet trunk, some crockery from the School, a bust of Isabell II cast in Trubia, and finally, cadet writing materials, together with one of the few records of Patent of Nobility to enter the School that can still be found.

The museum of the Royal Artillery School is definitely a good example of the importance of the Artillery and the Army in the past, and reminiscence of the presence of artillerists in the royal rooms of the fortress.