About the museum:
The Maritime Museum was founded in 1941 when the Dubrovnik Association organised an exhibition entitled “Sea Routes and Dubrovnik through the Centuries”. From 1949 it was a part of the Yugoslav Academy, and in 1987 was merged with Dubrovnik Museums. This museum is located in the Fort of St John (Ivan), restored after the 1979 earthquake. The permanent display was set up in 1976, with 4,000 objects owned by the museum shows the maritime history of Dubrovnik and surrounds. There are models of ships from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, flags, cannon and other ships, figureheads, ships’ instruments, logs, charts and various documents. The museum possesses a valuable library with many rare books and important archival records. The fortifications and walls of Dubrovnik are a confirmation of the attentive and systematic civil engineering activities of the Republic, which over the centuries defended and protected its city. The fortress of Sv. Ivan na Mulu is one of the four big city forts, the building of which started in the 14th century, the aim being to protect the city port from the south from the waves and from the open sea from the enemy. The appearance and spaces of today’s fort were created by the joining of individual buildings into a single unit in the 16th century. In 1889 the fort was remodelled into two floors and great windows were opened in the cannon embrasures. The maritime museum was first housed in Sv. Ivan in 1952.
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