About the museum:
Šibenik Museum was founded in 1925 on the occasion of the celebration of the millennium of the existence of the kingdom of Croatia; it was located in the former Rector’s Palace, hard by the cathedral. This palace is a part of the coastal defence system of the city, built in the 13th and 14th centuries. Two wings are extant today of this once much bigger building, once the official residence of the senior representative of government in Šibenik, the rector, or captain. The south wing stretches to the coast from a square to a polygonal tower. The square tower, known as the Rector’s Palace Tower, is the biggest defensive structure on the waterfront; it derives from the 14th century. Between it and the Bishop’s Palace is the Renaissance city gate of the 16th century. In the centre of the ground floor of the southern wing of the palace is a Gothic passage with the city gates on which is placed the city’s coat of arms with the figure of St Michael, the patron of the town. The west wing of the palace faces onto the sacristy and the apse of the cathedral. At the southern end are two doors of simple stone frames, and between them is a niche with a Baroque sculpture of the former rector Nikola Marcello. In 1975 the conversion of the palace was completed, allowing for the contemporary working of the museum. In its collections, the museum holds about 150,000 objects important for the study of the past of Šibenik, ever since ancient times. The museum has achieved its most important results in its research, exhibition and publishing activities. Numerous archaeological sites in the surrounds of Šibenik and in the waters around Šibenik have been explored, and more than 300 exhibitions shown, accompanied by their catalogues. Many editions valuable for the light they shed on the history of Krešimir’s Town, the oldest purely Croatian town on the Adriatic, have been published by the museum.
|