HISTORY OF DUBROVNIK MUSEUMS

The Dubrovnik Museums came into being on 5th February 1872 with the foundation of the Dubrovnik Regional Museum. The main initiators were the Chamber of Commerce and its chairman Antun Drobac (1810-1882), a pharmacist, natural historian and collector of natural history specimens, who became the lifetime chairman and the first curator of the museum.

The Dubrovnik Regional Museum was the fourth to be set up in Croatia. Housed on the first floor of the Town Hall building, it was inaugurated in April 1873. A valuable natural history collection represented the nucleus of the museum to which a culturological, a historical, and an archaeological collections were soon added.

In 1932, the museum collections were moved to St. John's Castle, while in 1940 the collection of stone monuments and the ethnological collection were relocated to what was formerly Rupe Granary. The cultural history collection (later a separate department) was moved to the Rector's Palace in 1948.

The first systematic inventory was drawn up in 1882. In February 1940, the Museum established its first statute.

Today, the Dubrovnik Museums represent a regional institution that comprises 6 museums:

• The Archaeological Museum
• The Ethnographic Museum
• The Cultural-Historical Museum
• The Maritime Museum
• The Modern History Museum
• The Marin Drzic Home

all of which are run by the same management. The rich museum holdings are displayed on four locations (the Rectors Palace, the Rupe Granary, St. John's Castle, and the Marin Drzic Home).

The Archaeological Museum and the Modern History Museum still do not have permanent premises in which to display their collections.

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