Grad Ptuj

Ptuj Regional Museum is a special museum with collections and sections of archaeology, history, cultural history, ethnology, restoration workshops and other services. It was founded in 1893, when the Ptuj Museum Society was established and archaeological artifacts were displayed in the then lower gymnasium.

In 1895, Professor Franc Ferk donated numerous artifacts of various types to the museum, which thus took the name of the donor - the Ferk Town Museum. Over the years, the exhibition area became too small, so the museum moved to the former Dominican convent in 1928.

After 1945, the castle complex was placed under the management of the museum, and thus acquired most of its current facilities. The museum continued to extend the geographical scope of its activities, and in 1963 it was named Ptuj Regional Museum. Today, the museum covers the wider area of Ptuj and Ormož, famous for its rich prehistoric and ancient sites (Roman Poetovio), the period of migration of peoples, monuments from the medieval and modern periods, which testify to the cultural and economic importance of Ptuj and its surroundings, as well as rich folklore traditions.

Thanks to its location, the castle slope was inhabited already in prehistoric times and in antiquity. The inhabitants of ancient Poetovio built a fortress and temples, while in the early Middle Ages the Slavs used the slope as a burial place for their dead. The medieval fortress was built in the 11th century when the castle and the town were owned by the archdiocese of Salzburg. The archbishops leased the castle to the Lords of Ptuj who, during the 300 years of their tenure, founded Dominican and Minorite monasteries and built a pilgrimage church on Ptujska Gora.

The last owners, the Herberstein counts, had it in their possession from 1873 to 1945 when it was nationalized, and together with its rich furnishings to the Ptuj Museum. Today Ptuj Castle houses the most visited and representative collections of the Ptuj-Ormož Regional Museum: weapons, musical instruments, traditional carnival masks, feudal housing culture, glass paintings and the castle gallery.

The gallery on the second floor of Ptuj Castle exhibits a collection of 47 paintings from the end of the 16th century to the 18th century: portraits of aristocrats, imperial portraits of the Habsburgs, paintings of religious and mythological scenes, still lifes and landscapes.

In the old feast hall of the Romanesque palace from the 12th century, the Weapons Collection is on display. The collection is of national importance as it consists of more than 500 pieces of various weapons, from cold steel weapons to firearms, hunting and sporting weapons, armor and other protective equipment from the 15th to the 20th century. .