The medieval and pre-modern lapidary constitutes one of the largest collections of its kind in the country, composed of Romanesque, Gothic and Renaissance architectural monuments, Baroque sculptural monuments, a vast collection of Renaissance, Baroque and Neoclassical funerary monuments and the collection of children in plaster casts of various types of medieval funerary and sculptural monuments in Transylvania.
A few things that you may not know about this lapidary and that it would be useful to know before you visit us:
The medieval and pre-modern lapidary of the National History Museum of Transylvania contains one of the most valuable collections of this kind in the country, with a number of 603 pieces.
The Ardelean Museum Society, the forerunner of the current museum, starting from the second half of the 19th century, initiated the systematic collection of architectural elements from the demolition of some historical Transylvanian buildings, most of them from the city of Cluj. So today we have a wonderful collection of architectural elements of the houses of the Renaissance Cluj, the way in which these private spaces of Cluj, the first city of Transylvania, were decorated.
The lapidary today contains a significant collection of funerary, architectural and sculptural monuments from the 13th-19th centuries, entering the collection through acquisitions, donations and through archaeological excavations.
The lapidary collection was first exhibited to the public in 1903, at the initiative of the archaeologist Béla Pósta, director of the Numismatic and Antiquities Collection of the Ardelean Museum Society, in the headquarters of the central building of the University of Cluj.
The most spectacular funerary monuments are the sarcophagi dedicated to the memory of prominent personalities of the Transylvanian nobility.
Gothic architecture from Transylvania is represented by the Gothic archways of the parish church of St. Michael in Cluj and by various architectural elements of the Dominican Monastery in Cluj, donated to the museum following the restoration of the edifice.
In the lapidarium are exhibited the first Renaissance architectural monuments in Transylvania, intended to decorate the episcopal fortress in Gilău and the earliest tabernacle in Transylvania, from the reformed church in Coveș (Sibiu county).
In the lapidary, six baroque statues are exhibited that originally decorated the attic of the court of honor of the Bánffy family castle in Bonţida. The statues were made between 1751-1753 by one of the most famous Baroque sculptors from Transylvania, Johann Nachtigall, representing various characters from Ovid's Metamorphoses.
Today's redevelopment aims to reorganize the lapidary according to thematic and chronological criteria, as well as to highlight this collection with the help of a modern, interactive design, dedicated to both specialists and the general public.
We are waiting for you to discover or rediscover this space, in a new form!
