Brukenthal National Museum
Romania's oldest public museum, in a late Baroque palace on Sibiu's Great Square.
The Brukenthal National Museum grew out of the collections of Samuel von Brukenthal, Habsburg governor of Transylvania, who assembled paintings, books, coins and minerals during the eighteenth century. His late Baroque palace on Sibiu's Great Square was built between 1778 and 1788 and opened to the public as a museum in 1817, making it the oldest institution of its kind in Romania and one of the earliest in central Europe. The collections were bequeathed to the Evangelical community and later passed into state ownership.
Today the museum is a complex of several buildings in central Sibiu. The palace houses the European Art Gallery, with Flemish, Dutch, German, Italian and Austrian paintings, alongside the Romanian art collection. Separate sections cover history, in the Altemberger House, natural history, contemporary art and pharmacy, the last installed in a former apothecary shop on the Little Square. The Brukenthal Library holds early printed books and manuscripts. The museum also mounts a regular programme of temporary exhibitions.
Highlights
- European Art Gallery in the governor's own late Baroque palace
- Collections first opened to the public in 1817
- History section in the medieval Altemberger House
- Pharmacy Museum in a former apothecary on the Little Square
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