The Cultural and Historic Collection – Old Town

Dostopno s kolesom Dostopno z avtom Muzej
  Šetalište Josipa Jurja Strossmayera 1 , 42000 Varaždin  Show on map   Virtual tour

The Cultural and Historic Collection – Old Town

The Old Town (Stari grad) is the most important cultural monument in Varaždin. This gothic-renaissance fortress, which was built and rebuilt several times from 14th to the 19th century, has been home to The Culture and History Department as a part of Varaždin City Museum since 1925. Both the fortress and the display have witnessed a few renovations, among which the one taking place between 1983 and 1989 was the most comprehensive. The approach has not changed, though since the very beginning the Old Town has partly retained the form of an ambient museum, where some holdings are shown through collections, and some through rooms designed in period style. Apart from signet rings, scepters and historic documents the Museum also shows valuable guild collections, cannons, stone monuments and both side arms and firearms. What is special about the display is that there are ten rooms furnished in period style, showing chronologically renaissance, baroque, rococo, Empire, Biedermeier, historicism and art deco. Walking through all these rooms a visitor can experience the spirit of the times gone-by and the lifestyle of those times.There is also a room in the Museum dedicated to two prominent men from Varaždin, a historian and a member of the Illyrian Movement Ivan Kukuljević Sakcinski and a world known philologist Vatroslav Jagić. The objects of everyday use and art represent artistic production and material culture created in Croatia and surrounding European countries in the period from the 14th to the mid 20th century. Collections testify about the social, cultural, political and economic life of Varaždin and its surroundings during the past centuries. The valuable book collection consists of the funds of the former Pauline Library in Lepoglava, the Varaždin Gymnasium Library, the Counts of Bombelles Counts of Opeka and the Varaždin family Leitner. Among them are very precious examples of national heritage (Kajkaviana) and European literature from the 16th to 20th century. In the fortress there is also a chapel of St. Lawrence and a sacristy. April 2007 saw another opening of a new museum department with 400 items from the glass, ceramics and clocks collection, and in 2014 it was decorated with a display of fashion and dress in the past.